When Enough is Enough

Lessons from My Garden

Welcome to Pocketful of Prose, a community for sharing stories. This pocket is a reminder to cherish the small things. Speaking of small things, I read Claire Keegan’s So Late in the Day, a collection of three short stories, while I laid on the dock by the lake and looked at the evergreen trees. Unlike the weather described in this post, the sky was blue, the air was clear, and I had just enough time to swim with Seabass and then read Claire’s short book cover to cover. Dare I say, it was a perfect afternoon even with Seabass asking me multiple times if I was ready to go yet. (I wasn’t.)

My friend Andrea Bass of Literary Merit recommends the best things, and she recommended Claire’s book to me. Andrea put together a booklist in March on the theme of Enough that is worth checking out as it pairs perfectly with this pocket. I’ve decided that Literary Merit compliments Pocketful of Prose like pinot noir does aged cheddar. I just googled whether wine compliments cheese or cheese compliments wine, and the results were inconclusive, but either way, grab your cheddar and wine or sparkling water, and read Andrea’s work.

I love that our community is growing. Because I’m on vacation this week, I’m reposting a pocket I shared last August. This gives me a little creative freedom over the next week, and it allows new readers to connect with some of my older work. As always there’s an audio of this post if that works better for your life, and links are in bold. I always pose a few questions every week, in the hopes that you will share your stories, and we can build community and have some good conversation. You don’t have to answer my questions, though. You can tell us what you’re reading, writing or creating, or you can just share your favorite ice cream flavor. This summer I’m going with Trader Joe’s chocolate chip mint.

Finally, thank you to those of you who have become new paid subscribers. For the rest of this month, all paid subscriber contributions will go towards feeding Palestinian children.

Without further ado, today’s pocket.

Here is a song I’m loving that pairs well with my post.

It can be hard when we have a vision of how we want something to be, and it turns out quite different.

I was planning to take myself to the lake today for an all-day writing retreat, but this morning I woke up to the worst air quality we have experienced this summer. As I walked Cato this morning, I could see ashes in the air. My writing retreat plans were squashed, a tiny disappointment compared to the losses of others this wildfire season. Nothing quite brings me to the edge of despair like wildfire smoke. I go outside every day, even on the coldest of days, so being forced indoors feels stifling. But this post is about leaning into what we have, not what we want, so I am mustering.

I had a vision for my garden this summer, and some of that vision has been fulfilled (see mammoth sunflower above), but some things have turned out a little different.

My yoga instructor and by my yoga instructor I mean Adrienne from Yoga with Adrienne on You Tube, tells me to set an intention at the end of my practice, a word to hold onto, to guide the day. “Enough,” I say. Enough is the word I want to embrace.

My Substack friend Lynne wrote a post about her garden harvest and called it Zucchinification. I love made-up silly words that make so much sense. Maybe you feel similar to Lynn, and you have so many zucchinis, you don’t even know what to do with them. Maybe you grew a zucchini just like this.

I did not grow a zucchini just like this. This is a gift from a colleague of Dan’s, I think it’s the third one we have received this summer, the gift that keeps on giving. I’m currently reading Tom Lake, by Anne Patchett, and this abundance even finds me here. “The cherry trees are so burdened that I don’t know how we’ll get the fruit picked before it rots.”

I know this feeling. Last year, I had blackberries in bucketsful. What will we do with all the blackberries? I wondered. And then I turned them into pie and ice cream and muffins and gave some to the neighbors and then finally ended up freezing some so I could remind myself in February what summer was.

But this year is different. It is not my year of bumper crops. I do not have an ocean of zucchini. I don’t have too much of anything that I don’t know what to do with. In my garden, things are taking their time. These are my cucumbers. Aren’t they adorable?

I have a beautiful garden that I created from the ground up. It’s really darling, and it feeds my soul. Sometimes though, I get garden envy. One might even say, I am green with envy. I got slightly envious of my Substack friend Kristy when she wrote about her abundance of strawberries on her Substack Sowing Words. I got slightly jealous of my friend Jamie’s garden because she has so many different kinds of flowers blooming. I didn’t get jealous of Lynne’s zucchinis. I don’t even grow zucchinis, and I have more zucchinis than I know what to do with.

These two pics feature the bounty from one zucchini folks. Good thing eating zucchini bread is not a burden.

Jealousy can be a green-eyed monster and it can devour us. It can be the stick in our own eye that prevents us from seeing straight, from appreciating what we do have instead of desiring what we don’t. It can also be instructive though. Lynne, Kristy and Jamie are good gardeners, and I can learn from them. After I saw Kristy’s strawberries, I asked her what her secret was. She said she doesn’t do all that much, but the berries get plenty of sun. I realized that the back part of my garden where I have been trying to grow strawberries for years with little success might not be the best home for mine, so I moved them to a sunnier spot. Jamie’s plethora of flower blooms made me realize that some of mine were probably not getting enough water or food. I checked my watering system, and I made some changes. My garden is better because I noticed some things that I liked about other people’s gardens, but my garden does not have to be like anyone else’s. It is enough as it is.

My smaller harvest this year has taught me some important lessons. I don’t have any garden burden. I don’t have to worry about what to do with my blackberries. I don’t have to spend time baking tarts or muffins. I can simply tend to my garden and pop a few in my mouth as I go. They taste so good straight from the vine, I wonder why I ever seriously considered eating them any other way.  I pick a few for Dan and leave them next to his coffee. It is my reciprocity for him chopping all the hot peppers and storing them. I send my kids out to pick a few when they seem stressed out. I put them in our morning yogurt. The blackberries have been feeding us all month, one by one. We cherish them like offerings. They taste like love.

It is the same with my tomatoes. They take their time and stay green until July when there is just one red one. I pick it and slice it and pull some basil and place them both between fresh bread, and it is the best thing I have ever tasted. It tastes like summer. On Wiser Than Me, Julia Louis Dreyfus recently interviewed food writer Ruth Reichl who describes tasting a strawberry as a “moment of grace.” I know exactly what she means. It is how I feel when I eat my simple summer sandwich, like someone has opened a window to joy. I don’t have a giant yield of tomatoes, but the ones I do have taste better than any tomatoes I have ever grown.

Jealousy is not the only monster I have to watch out for. I sometimes am visited by an insatiable desire for more. I want to read all the books, subscribe to all the Substacks, grow all the things, bake all the desserts. It is never going to be enough. Somewhere in my learning I have been taught that more is better. More food, more money, more exercise, more subscribers, more likes.  This desire for more isn’t just my problem. It is a cultural problem, and it has caused us to make a mess of things. It will destroy us if we don’t stop and pause and say no more. The earth gives us so much abundance, but we have to be more responsible caretakers of the gifts we have been given.

My aunt shared that her flowers haven’t done as well this year due to weather. She didn’t have the abundance she had in past years, so here’s what she did in response. She put them in smaller containers.

Isn’t that clever? It reminds me that we can always choose to cultivate beauty. Maybe sometimes we just need a smaller container, one that can hold what we have.

I am going to close out this pocket with a poem that my friend James Crews wrote. James is the author of several poetry compilations, and his book Kindness Will Save the World was released this past Spring.

James’ poem speaks to me about embracing the life you have, the garden you have, not the garden in your mind. To me it is about breathing in and saying, Enough. I can’t actually breathe the air outside today, it being hazardous and all, and so I am changing the shape of my container for today and probably the next few days. Still, I will do my best to be open to the wildness within.

Wild Daisy

by James Crews

A blossom in the hand, bright face

Of a daisy growing at the edge

Of the plot you so carefully tended

and mulched, is worth far more

than the garden in your mind. These

the only petals that you need, this

the color that calls to your eyes.

You have had to learn the difference

Between fantasy and a life you can

Actually hold, cupping in your palm

This thing that leans in toward you

each time you pass, which nods

in the breeze, saying yes and yes,

I belong here too, giving voice

To the wildness that’s also in you.

What resonates with you today? What’s growing in your garden? What’s growing in your heart? What is your favorite ice cream?