I spent the later part of Thursday afternoon planting my garden. I shuffled from the kitchen to the back, dirt everywhere, even chunked in-between my knee folds. River was at school, and all I could think about was how important the act of planting was in that moment. What I was doing right then and there, “tending” to other living things and me, to make beautiful and whole. How may that affect this one-day woman I am raising?
When I was younger, my favorite activity was planting myself on top of the toilet seat, and watch as my mother dug through her make-up bag every at 6:30 am. I loved the way she found the bobby-pins at the bottom to twist her hair up. I remember the way she effortlessly applied her gold lipstick, then smacking them together to make that popping noise of confidence. I grew up with her “tending.” No, River doesn’t sit and watch me apply my make-up, but that visual of bringing life to my garden, and giving that to her as a sort of woman-in-training gift, had me blown away. In that moment, I was reminded that tending to me, precedes being present with them. Growing my garden of sorts. Releasing them of the burden of my lack, and simultaneously giving them confidence and space to bloom on their own one day.
