Lessons from my Garden

I’m a serial restarter. I embrace the beginning of the new year, a new month and a new week with a feeling of wiping the slate clean to start fresh and welcome the opportunity to do it all again. I want to do whatever it is better, maybe to enjoy it more, and to live fully this beautiful life I’ve been given.

However, before restarting I try to reflect on lessons learned that I can incorporate into my new start. I think that’s especially important at the beginning of a new year when I have an entire year behind me from which to harvest lessons. It’s like when I walk through my garden and pay attention to every seemingly small change in the plants, the soil, the sunlight. I want to learn what garden evolution, and my personal growth, have to tell me.

This year, my reflection has unearthed three basic lessons from 2024. Some of them I’ve been trying to learn for years. However, 2024 was when I had finally practiced enough that I could say I finally learned (or almost learned) each of these lessons.

Be where my feet are.

I’ve been a daydreamer all of my life, often projecting into the future about something I want to do or something I hope for. Too much of that daydreaming can pull me so far from the present moment that I can miss its beauty.

In 2023, I attended a meditation retreat at the Sisters of Charity of Nazareth retreat center. We tried multiple kinds of meditation. The one that most resonated with me used three simple lines that calm me and remind me to live in the precious, present moment. After using that meditation daily for almost two years, I’m finally getting it. I’m fully here in the same room where my body is.

Be a single-tasker.

I came to age as a professional during the 1980s, a decade where being busy all the time was a status symbol. Unfortunately, that symbol has maintained a position in our culture.

Since busyness was treated as a goal, so was (is) multi-tasking. I will admit that sometimes multi-tasking, whether it’s when I’m working at my computer or cleaning the house, pumps up my endorphins and makes me feel like I’m super woman. The problem with that is that my mind doesn’t always keep up as well as I think it is. The next day I can’t remember where I saved that file or in which corner I left my mop. I might have accomplished a lot but it didn’t all stick with me so I have to retrace those steps.

The multi-tasking can also cause me to lose something I value. I had a hand tool that I used frequently in the garden to loosen soil and dig up weeds. In a multi-tasking frenzy, I left my tool next to a garden bed, went to do something else and never put the tool away. The next day, Jim mowed the lawn. Yes, the garden tool is now but a half portion of itself that sits in my garden as a reminder to focus on one task.

I can fully give myself over when I do one task at a time, doing a better job. When I have a lot to get done, I still want to embrace the multi-tasking. But I’ve learned to be much better at maintaining my focus on the most important task before me.

Pay attention to the simple changes every day.

Last year, Jim got me a bird feeder for Christmas then hung it directly outside of my office window. It encourages me to stop what I’m doing and watch the birds. In that watching, I’ve noticed that different birds come in as weather conditions shift. It’s a simple change, but one worth noting.

Throughout the fall and early winter, I walked through the garden daily to check on the remaining broccoli plants. They wouldn’t have time to fully develop, but I knew they could produce at least a small head to give me a few broccoli bites. The growth was so microscopic that I couldn’t always see it, but the practice of observing the plants daily also helped remind me to observe other changes around me as well, including the bunny that appeared to be making its home under now brown leaves from the formerly glamorous gladiola.

Close to the broccoli was the asparagus fern. In the greenhouse, it had been labeled as yarrow but when I researched its care, I discovered this plant looked nothing like yarrow. Even though we’ve had freezing temperatures, last week it still has bright, green fronds growing from its center, a beautiful testament to life and new growth during this season of winter. Without my garden walk, I would have missed that.

Winter is a season when everything becomes new again. May your own reflections on the past year lead you to newness and beauty in 2025.