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You have to remind yourself that no one else is going to rake up last autumn’s leaves, so you swagger out to the shed. The garden, full of clay, needs all the decaying matter it can get so you pile the leaves into a wheelbarrow and dump them. A week will go by. You realize kindly neighbors won’t be stopping by to help you plant the cherry tomatoes and jalapenos and whatever other baby plants you chose last Sunday morning when you were feeling hopeful at the garden store. You press and wiggle the shovel around the hard soil for what feels like hours. You give up and run to the store to buy big, heavy bags of dirt. You think yourself clever to place soil on top of the clay and arrange the plants into pretty rows. You wake every morning at dawn and march out to the garden to weed. This is successful until you remember you hate getting up early. And weeding. And bugs. You will develop a blind spot when it comes to that trapezoid of land. An old friend will call and want to catch up so you’ll offer her a weak invitation to visit. She’ll bring her husband. It will be a lovely day in July and they will insist you take them on a tour of your house and grounds. You will scold yourself for not loading up their iced tea with rum or gin or something that would inhibit their standing – let alone their walking. When you reach the garden, you will be surprised there are white flowers on the pepper plants and a small jalapeno growing on one of them. You will be astonished at the cluster of tiny green tomatoes on a few of the branches. You will make a joke about frying them up for Lilliputians. As they leave, you will hear assurances that you are faring much better than he is. You will know this is a lie, but you will accept it. You will return to the garden haphazardly over the rest of the summer. You will pat yourself on the back for harvesting a few fresh vegetables which was the intention behind starting a garden back in the spring when false bravado caused you to declare you were going to “get back to the business of living” even though you didn’t know what that would entail. You will remember the burst of tang from the one perfect tomato you grew anytime you need to lift your spirits. It is in this manner that you will successfully survive the first bittersweet year of divorce and be lighter for it.
Author's Note:
For me, self-care means acupuncture. This year, I let go of my fear of needles long enough to see if it would help with the tension I carried in my shoulders – and it did. More than that, I felt my mind, body, and soul responding in positive ways, so I’ve continued.
Limiting social media, bubble baths, Pilates, being grateful for five different things before I open my eyes in the morning are other ways I practice taking care of myself, but of all the things that have aided me in my quest for “humanness,” acupuncture has helped me the most.
T. L. Sherwood tends to a garden in western New York. Creekside Reflections, her monthly blog about the writing life, can be found here: https://tlsherwood.com/
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