"This I Believe" assignment
My ardent determination to grow something beautiful from nothing brought me to realize the beauty and the growth in myself. It was at that moment when I gently tucked the cool roots of that first hopeful seedling into the crumbling, sun baked earth that I saw my thumbs turn a most enviable shade of green. In the garden I grow.
As a child, you could always find me in Mommy’s garden; tinkering with the ants, gently peeling into a fallen flower bud to see what was hidden inside, popping a warm, ripe cherry tomato into my mouth, even before I had any teeth worth speaking of. When there were other kids to play with, I found myself valiantly standing up for the sake of the curiously bright beetle which they wished to step upon. Time and time again I whimpered and wailed a piteous elegy from the crisp wet lawn to which I was pushed, as I watched in horror, through crocodile tears, their impish hands tear up all the lovely daisies that poked their fresh white faces from the sandy soil. I always knew well the splendor of Mother Nature, and was quick to condemn those who defiled her, but found forgiveness upon experiencing the resiliency of her brood, when miraculous to my learning eyes, my daisies came back with the spring. And I grew.
Time passed as it will, and it came to be that I wasn’t a little girl anymore. I had grown into a self-proclaimed sagely teenager, and heaven help my mother when she were to ask me to wield a trowel, to pull a weed, to rake one measly leaf. I refused to put my hands to work along side her, deeming it boring and too strenuous for my while. Still, when alone, the garden was my place to let go from my daily struggles and stretch my ever bustling imagination. Daydreaming under the low slung locust boughs, lazing amid forget me nots and columbine bells, I’d contemplate on my day, scrawling in my journal, and I grew.
Again, time trudged on and found me as I stood outside my first home away from Cape Cod, on my own at last. A tiny twinge of homesickness had inspired me to set about starting my own garden, as my mother and I had always loved to spend so much time in hers. Sweaty and aching from tilling the poor soil, I looked at the dry little plot, smiled, and deemed it well enough to become my very first garden. I remember this feeling, like a tiny sprout of ambition deep inside. It made my heart swell, wanting to burst forth from my chest and stretch towards the sun. And so I cultivated that feeling. I borrowed books from the library and started a garden journal. I asked around at the nurseries when the books couldn’t help, and got a job there when I knew enough to wield a hose. By trowel and error, I listened to the plants, to the earth and gave it what it asked for. And so as my garden grew, I grew.
And here I am today, where the garden brought me. Studying Horticulture, making a life for myself from where I first learned the lessons of it. While I was away from home, my parents got divorced, and Mom had to abandon the decades of work and love she had put in to her garden. Now, finally after her years of beckoning and pleading, I pick up a spade beside her, to help her start anew. To show her I have grown. To see myself that I have grown. To reap what we sow, and to bear the fruits of our labor. In the garden, I grow.
As a child, you could always find me in Mommy’s garden; tinkering with the ants, gently peeling into a fallen flower bud to see what was hidden inside, popping a warm, ripe cherry tomato into my mouth, even before I had any teeth worth speaking of. When there were other kids to play with, I found myself valiantly standing up for the sake of the curiously bright beetle which they wished to step upon. Time and time again I whimpered and wailed a piteous elegy from the crisp wet lawn to which I was pushed, as I watched in horror, through crocodile tears, their impish hands tear up all the lovely daisies that poked their fresh white faces from the sandy soil. I always knew well the splendor of Mother Nature, and was quick to condemn those who defiled her, but found forgiveness upon experiencing the resiliency of her brood, when miraculous to my learning eyes, my daisies came back with the spring. And I grew.
Time passed as it will, and it came to be that I wasn’t a little girl anymore. I had grown into a self-proclaimed sagely teenager, and heaven help my mother when she were to ask me to wield a trowel, to pull a weed, to rake one measly leaf. I refused to put my hands to work along side her, deeming it boring and too strenuous for my while. Still, when alone, the garden was my place to let go from my daily struggles and stretch my ever bustling imagination. Daydreaming under the low slung locust boughs, lazing amid forget me nots and columbine bells, I’d contemplate on my day, scrawling in my journal, and I grew.
Again, time trudged on and found me as I stood outside my first home away from Cape Cod, on my own at last. A tiny twinge of homesickness had inspired me to set about starting my own garden, as my mother and I had always loved to spend so much time in hers. Sweaty and aching from tilling the poor soil, I looked at the dry little plot, smiled, and deemed it well enough to become my very first garden. I remember this feeling, like a tiny sprout of ambition deep inside. It made my heart swell, wanting to burst forth from my chest and stretch towards the sun. And so I cultivated that feeling. I borrowed books from the library and started a garden journal. I asked around at the nurseries when the books couldn’t help, and got a job there when I knew enough to wield a hose. By trowel and error, I listened to the plants, to the earth and gave it what it asked for. And so as my garden grew, I grew.
And here I am today, where the garden brought me. Studying Horticulture, making a life for myself from where I first learned the lessons of it. While I was away from home, my parents got divorced, and Mom had to abandon the decades of work and love she had put in to her garden. Now, finally after her years of beckoning and pleading, I pick up a spade beside her, to help her start anew. To show her I have grown. To see myself that I have grown. To reap what we sow, and to bear the fruits of our labor. In the garden, I grow.