DIRT TO DIRT. EVERYTHING DIES.
I’ve lost a lot of friends over the last year. I’ve lost enough that I’m not going to enumerate them or honor and name them at the end of this piece because I know I will have forgotten at least one of them, probably more. Not because they are forgettable; because there has been so much grief to hold onto and let go of and hold onto again. And the fact that I cannot remember their names at this moment doesn’t mean these are people that I just know (knew). I mean friends. I mean people that I love (loved). I mean people that I have talked to meaningfully over and over again, and meaninglessly even more. I mean people that I have known for years, whose phone numbers I have, who are close to my heart even when they’re far away (even when they’re gone), who feel (felt) like a comfy couch every time I run (ran) into them whether it has (had) been days or years between.
I would love to move into this paragraph speaking to the ways in which gardening has helped me manage my grief, about how the experience of being around and nurturing plants over the years, watching them be born and die, has made it easier to accept death and loss in the larger world.
I would love to then write about all the ways that gardening is grounding, that being around abundant life and watching something under your care thrive can help one to move past the pain of enduring grief.
I would love to finish by writing about the inevitability of death and the circle of life, ashes to ashes, dust to dust, body to compost to tree and such, that nature teaches us that no death is in vain, and that everything we lose can become something else we love if only we allow it to.
I will not be writing anything that I would love to be writing now. Not yet anyway.
There will always be loss. Everything dies, and it is never easy. But there is a difference between losing something that we are expecting to die, and losing what is taken from us suddenly. An annual plant is called an annual because it dies and reproduces annually, and we can be ready for that. A perennial plant lives longer, but usually we can see when it is aging, as it moves past its prime, and can prepare, plan, and gird ourselves for a future without it. In a perfect world, loss comes when we most expect it; and while it still leaves holes in our lives, we can prepare for that loss and plan accordingly.
The world is not perfect.
Now and again, a plant that looked so flawless and lovely the last time you checked on it is just gone the next time you take a look. Worse still, perhaps you saw their death coming but could do nothing to stop it. A freeze came, but you were out of town. Aphids covered a plant that only yesterday was bug-free and living large.
Yes. These are the best metaphors I can come up with right now for the kinds of painful human losses that we shouldn’t have to experience, but do, or will, or do and will again. Death by suicide, overdose, motorcycle, stroke, heart attack. Murder. We cannot prepare for these. And we do not get used to these. The best we can do is accept that unexpected loss happens and try not to let that stop us from continuing. To try not to stop trying.
So here’s me trying. Gardening has taught me to accept death and mitigate grief and embrace the holistic truth of the carbon cycle, and of course how can one not love to tears the imagery of a tree growing atop and feeding upon the decomposing body of a loved one—of molecules, soil, and soul intertwining quite literally and beautifully? And yes, working with plants has helped me move past some of my more grievous moments. When the world has been hardest, touching grass has never been enough, but I’ll grant it credit for at least a modicum of comfort when my inner world has been in full collapse.
But experiencing grief—unexpected, sudden, repeated grief—does not get easier. And when and if it does get easier, that ease will be testament not to something going right, but to everything going wrong. The moment that the death of a friend doesn’t gut me is the moment I myself don’t need to be here anymore. All the same, it would be nice to experience such an impossible depth of feeling a little less consistently.
The horrors persist, but so can you. And the world of the garden does have its little lessons to share in that regard. There are always troubles in the yard, there is always death and resurgence, sometimes slow, sometimes sudden. But there is also persistence. Whether it is the life you want there or just life at all, life does find a way in the garden bed. And, better than that, if you pay that life even a sliver of attention, it sways towards your intention. And if you pay that life a bit of your love atop that attention, it becomes ever more persistently, consistently, intentionally thriving in a manner that suits you. You cannot control the world, but you can control how the world affects your garden. Yes. You are the garden. Stay alive.
If you’ve got questions for the Dirt Nerd, feel free to email ian@hotplantsnursery.com or visit @hotplantsnursery.
illustrations by Rachel Speck
