The Cracks Beneath Me

Dear Ashley,

I'm sorry. I suck at writing consistent blogs. Please love me.

Cherie

This past summer I tried my hand at planting a vegetable garden. Since I'm still only renting and our yard doesn't get much sunshine, I planted my garden at my sister-in-law's house. Sadly, I planted too late in the season and only got a box full of tomatoes. And not good tomatoes. Green tomatoes. The kind of tomatoes you have to put in a paper bag above your fridge and check up on until they finally turn red and you realize you haven't checked up on them often enough because they're all soft and squishy now.

Oh well. Next year.

I also tried planting some flowers. I bought a packet of Morning Glory seeds and two large flower pots. The directions said to soak the seeds overnight and then plant them 12 inches apart. Since my flower pots were only 12 inches across, I naturally planted about 30 or so seeds in each one.

There were still quite a few seeds left over after that, so I found a 4 gallon pail, punched some holes in the bottom and very quickly realized that I didn't have enough soil to fill it up. So I filled the bottom of the pail with cardboard and paper and layered the top with the rest of my potting soil and planted the rest of my seeds. (I'd like to take this moment to say how incredibly difficult it is to plant tiny seeds that have been soaked in water. They stick to your fingers and won't let go. "Get in the dirt, you little scoundrels!" I kept telling them. "Be planted!")

As soon as I put the pots and pail in the back yard, I looked in sadness at my makeshift flower pot as the soil started to sink down into the cracks between the cardboard and newspapers. I figured I wasn't going to get any flowers out of that one.

Over the next few weeks I babied my little garden and watered it every day and moved the pots around as the shadows changed direction throughout the day. I also grumbled at the holes in the soil, obvious signs of somebody foreging for food. Either a squirell or a bird. Those little rascals.

But finally... tiny little leaves started to sprout and eventually, even two little leaves popped up in the pail. One of them ended up being a weed, but I did get one flower out of that pail!

The two pots blossomed.
But even though a little green stalk had emerged out of the pail, no flowers bloomed yet.

When the frost finally hit, I gave up on my garden. I stopped watering and stopped plucking off dead flowers and eventually it wilted and all the flowers were gone.

Until today. I've been driving to work lately but today I took the bus and on my way home, I got off the bus early so I could walk and admire what is left of the Fall colours. As I walked through the gate in my back yard, I spotted one flower still standing tall. And guess where it was.

This was a little miracle to me. It had frosted half a dozen times and even snowed a little twice. And yet, this one flower, in a crappy make-shift pot with a shallow bed of soil, that hadn't been watered for at least a month, was still there, tall and beautiful.

The flowers in the two pots were beautiful and brought me a lot of joy over the summer and it made me sad to see only one flower bloom in my 4 gallon pail. But when I saw that little flower today, I was awed.

I hope I can be like that flower for the rest of my life. Standing tall and beautiful even after the frost has come, even if I've been planted in a dingy old pail with the soil sinking down into the cracks beneath me.