What’s growing in your garden?
We have a fairly decent sized backyard, and most years we use about 1/4 of it for a summer vegetable garden. We grow tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, zucchini, yellow squash– the usual suburban garden fare. The easy stuff. I’m almost convinced that I could simply hold a zucchini seed above the ground, and within 2 days’ time zucchini the size of baseball bats would grow! And the tomatoes are perpetually sprouting because the rotten ones fall to the ground at the end of summer and just start growing again in late April.
Sometimes we’ve even tried growing vegetables that are a little off the beaten path, like eggplant. I’ve failed at eggplant for 3 summers in a row, though, so I think I may just give it up. We’re still finessing the ins and outs of growing melons, too. I’ve discovered that they require a lot more attention than the lower maintenance veggies. Every day I have to be out there turning the little melons, or unwinding their little grabby tendrils from places they don’t need to grow, or trying (in vain!) to get them to grow up the A-frame we’ve planted them near.
It seems like the garden goes along very smoothly, happily growing until sometime close to July 4th. And then it happens. WEEDS. One day I’ll look out and the amount of weeds is manageable, easily plucked, no problem at all. 2 days later and they’ve taken over the entire garden patch and have somehow managed to grow knee high. Which makes me think….
Isn’t that how life goes sometimes? Good things are happening, work is going smoothly, relationships are great, family is happy, personal self-care is on track… you take a few days off and WHAM! Problems are everywhere. Bad habits turn up like they never left. Old grievances rear their ugly heads. Nothing seems to go right. Just like those weeds in my garden. Sometimes all it takes is one really good rainstorm to unleash them all. over. the. place.
What’s a gardener to do????
No, the correct answer here is not to bust out the flamethrower and incinerate the garden to eradicate the weeds. This is not the time for slash and burn. (Although, I wouldn’t fault you for harboring that very satisfying thought!)
Pull on your garden gloves and set to work pulling the weeds. This is the time to take a few deep breaths and tackle the problems of life. One at a time. See, all that time you’ve spent practicing good self-care and cultivating those relationships with your friends and family and co-workers, it will pay off now because you have greater self-awareness. You’ll be able to analyze those thoughts and feelings with some perspective, and you’ll be able to get things back on track quickly.
Just like doing a little weeding every day helps to keep the task manageable, even in those times when there’s a huge burst in weed growth. Those daily self-care practices help in the long run!
So what are you growing in your garden? If it’s feeling overgrown with weeds, give me a call and let’s work together to clean it up. I’m always happy to answer questions about how music therapy might be able to help!
