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Where the curiosity never ends…
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I didn't water my plants - 4.08.20.
Maybe it is easier to leave something that you once found beautiful if you let it slowly die first. A rose whose petals are withered and fading tugs less on the heartstrings than one still in full bloom.
My garden has been synonymous with me since I first began it over ten years ago. Once an overgrown and neglected space, it soon became my pride and joy, a sanctuary to escape to when I needed it. When the world was locked down, it was where I retreated to. It kept me sane. But now it has become a painful metaphor of what I am going through, the life I no longer want to live is slowly dying around me.
But I don’t callously throw the geraniums onto the compost heap, I do shed a tear for what it once was and all the hopes and dreams my garden used to represent. I also feel especially sad at the sight of one of my favourite roses giving up the ghost. The irony being its demise is purely coincidental and has nothing to do with my neglect. It’s as if it already knows it’s time to move on, there is no point in blooming anymore. And other plants I have had for years look at me with their drooping heads as if to say “why aren’t we enough for you anymore?”. I feel the guilt rise, I can’t articulate an answer. So, I just chop out the dead wood and carry on.
I also wonder what the garden will look like when I am no longer here. Will the ivy finally have its way and take over? How long will it take for the many marks I have made on this small plot of land over the years to disappear? I know I am giving into the melancholy, and that this is just one of many goodbyes I will have to say before I can begin again
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As I sit on the patio and write this, surrounded by pots of dried earth, I wonder if I did this with other aspects of my life? Did I metaphorically not water them so it would be easier to leave them behind when the time came? Subconsciously or consciously, I think I did. But despite that, I just wish I could have had one last normal summer here, pottering in the greenhouse, watching the birds. But as the saying goes, we make plans and God laughs and I don’t water my plants.