It’s been a mere five years since I started our veggie garden from scratch on this blank, rocky canvas next to the cottage we had bought the year before, after quitting a job as gardener at the local chateau, sadly one of the many, many callings I aligned myself to at the time, too involved and drowned in prognosticated opportunities that in hindsight regrettably complicated me staying focussed, or grounded, or whatever one deems necessary to maintain a healthy relationship with what surrounds.
Looking back, redesigning that vacant space into something that would yield us some food was obligatory, more than anything else, as one does when living in the countryside. It took my actual heart quite a bit longer to jump on the bandwagon too by carefully suggesting romantic tweaks and subtly smoothing out hard lines of sight that were never even noticed before, but I’ve learned the hard way not to judge its pace and instead trust its tenacity.
Like hearts, gardens have a natural disposition to thrive, powerfully pushing forward, ignoring have-to’s and instead overbearingly celebrate every inch that breathes movement. Entering a garden without specifically wanting to, I now know, makes no sense as the damage done by being absentminded will not weigh up to anything that’s about to be achieved. There’s many a gardening job I loath but at the same time gladly submit to when I gently run into it by longing to be there, and only there.
The unpredictable showing up of beauty wherever it’s most needed, whoever needs it, that too, makes for picture perfect happiness. It erases sour memories too, even the shared ones.
Frank, Ik zou je graag een e-mail sturen, maar de mails die ik via de mail contact op de pagina verstuur worden niet bezorgd. Groet, Kees Maaswinkel
Het zou inmiddels moeten werken, maar ik heb je ook een mail gestuurd met daarin het adres waar je me op kunt bereiken.