just SIT

I shuffled with labored gait onto the garden pathway with a very heavy heart. “I haven’t  been able to do ANYTHING in the garden,” I lamented. THIS due to an ongoing struggle with foot problems that has left me hobbling around in a walking cast. By the time the most necessary of daily tasks are complete, I am so heavy with fatigue from dragging the lame limb everywhere I go that I have little energy left to limp out to the garden. This particular evening, however, I was determined to enjoy an autumn salad before the first frost retires the burgeoning bed of lettuce.

“But it’s not all about WORK!!!” came the instant reply in my head. “It’s about the SPACE, and the BEAUTY. Come out here when the sun is shining, and just SIT and ENJOY the space, the SPIRIT of what you’ve created!” I had to admit that I’d never ventured out to the garden just to SIT. I’ve generally got a zillion things I aim to accomplish - way more than I can count on my own allotment of fingers and toes. In fact, I’m known to take LISTS to the garden, something that probably ought to be outlawed and relegated to the “way too busy to enjoy the process” category.

“Okay. I’ll SIT,” I replied, and determined to do just that. The following day I  shuffled my way out to the bench by the crumpled vines I’ve yet to gather, and facing the collards so run-amok with aphids that I doubt I’ll get any to eat myself, and I just SAT for awhile. It took some doing, at first, to slow the busying of my mind so tempted to note the chores left undone, but with a “hush” of myself a time or two I quieted down to hear the last of the crickets chirping in the weeds and the rasping leaves of corn long spent. I gazed at the scattering of zinnias slowly folding for the season, and even lay on my back on a warm patch of clippings dried on the ground. A butterfly fluttered delicate white wings through the bold, azure sky and a yellow spotted beetle dithered about the coiled cone of a morning glory flower. My heart warmed in the softened glow of the mellow autumn sun and I eased myself down to the gentle ebbing there is of everything this time of year. A productive time it was, I have to say, an easing unto rest, and I’ve decided, of course, that I must arrange for more of these times before the winter’s cold arrives, and that I must “just SIT” more often.