Someone told me she were taking a break from her garden. I told her that was fine but she could only hold her breath for so long. Soon enough, she would have to exhale and then she would be back in her garden again.
If you are a gardener, comparing a pause in your gardening activities to holding your breath makes perfect sense. If you are not a gardener, you may be shaking your head, wondering why a gardener would hold her breath.
Well, really, we don’t actually hold our breaths if we leave our gardens. But we do breathe best with our hands in the dirt and our noses stuck in flowers.
In temperate climates, we don’t get to spend all year breathing in a garden. We are more or less forced to head indoors and leave the garden when fall turns winter-like and then winter settles in. When this happens, and it happens every year, we find reasonable substitutes for breathing gardening. We tend to our houseplants. We read gardening books. We eagerly await seed and plant catalogs and browse online for more plants for our gardens.
We remember what it is like to breathe in a garden in May, and use that memory to sustain us through the long winter.
I totally agree with you !
You put into words what I feel. I experience a "funk" every summer when it is just too hot to garden (Texas). Now I know why…I'm not breathing 🙂 When September rolls around again and that first hint of cool comes in the air, I take a deep breath and dive back in 🙂
Finally, a way i can express it to my friends. they sometimes comment on how i'm different at home to how i am at school, and at first i thought it was just because i don't like school… but i do, i love school… but now i realise, i'm not breathing, very well put Carol. thankfully i'm in a climate where i can garden all year round… though it does get a bit uncomfortable in summer, but i'm as stubborn as an ox and refuse to give in 🙂
We certainly needed those breaths today Carol when it started to snow! I don't think I can remember snow so early in the year – I wonder what it all means…
What a perfect way to put it! I always say my garden is my therapist and my church.
breathing is so much better when you can do it in the garden!
Very true! Every once in awhile I have to take a break (especially in the summer when it's so hot). But then at some point I go outside, wander around in the garden, take a deep breath of fresh air and think,' I've missed this. This is where I need to be.'