Being outside and cleaning up my sacred spaces revives me, even with mosquitoes (spray every part of your exposed skin), hot weather, and the gathering storm approaching over the mountains. But as the world goes on and people remain frenzied and a little bit crazy, my sanctuary is where I’ll be for most of the summer, far from the noise spewing forth from the media. Cleanup continues and I look for those plants that I am going to excavate and re-plant in the fall. The front yard bed was the first garden that I experimented with when we first moved here over 27 years ago. Time does seem to fly by us and seems to speed up as we age.

I’ll divide and move my ancient peonies to the back yard where I hope they’ll thrive and bloom once again like they did when I first planted them. I’ll dig up sedums and grasses from that same old bed where the crazy ground cover grows and continues to try and smother them out of existence. I’ll transplant them to the new bed in the front yard where I took out almost 200 square feet of grass and replaced it by planting those wonderful waterwise plants a few years ago (courtesy of Resource Central Boulder and the City of Louisville). I hope they will fill the gaps and thrive and complement my overall aesthetic scheme. And I’ll try (once again) to eradicate that crazy Snow in the Mountain ground cover that took over the whole bed. (Careful what you wish for in a ground cover – one plant exploded and multiplied into places I never intended it to do! It is out of control!) I hope to add another cute cedar tree and maybe a few more roses in those areas next spring after the snowmelt.

I get slower with the cleanup every year, as I dig up more grass and put in new plants. Some make it, some don’t, but it’s the physical act of trying and doing that matters. We try everything to combat aging and when our lives don’t always go in the direction we had originally planned, we persevere. But perhaps that’s the point of living: to find what is our true direction in a world of chaos and mis-direction; to be the person we were supposed to be even if it turns out to be something totally different from our first childhood vision board (or journal in my case). Maybe it’s okay just to be who we are at any given moment in our lifetime. And maybe it’s okay to create beauty in our change of direction, moving like the wind and the water onto the next project without regret for what has happened, anything that has been lost to us, in the past. Sometimes the losses make us grow even more.

Currently, we are trying to thrive in a chaotic atmosphere where storms (both human and environment) create destruction. But, when the clouds move in and the world looks grim, we slowly begin to see the fruits of our labor like the humble zucchini. We are thriving despite all the setbacks, and are brave enough to try and make the best creations from the bounty of our gardens. And if the tomatoes still have spots on them, add a little calcium (I just learned this! Egg shells and/or Tums!) and hopefully you will get the fruit in the end where you can create something tasty and wonderful.

So don’t get discouraged with your life. Make the best of it every day. If the only thing you can do is to give water and a snack to a person standing with a sign on the side of the road, then do it. You may have saved that person’s life for one more day. And that’s a good thing for you to do. (Thanks for that tip goes out to my eye doctor’s nurse!) So, don’t curse and spit into the wind. Don’t spew negative nonsense to others who are just trying to figure it out in their daily existence. Just lend a helping hand when you can and be thankful for where you are at this moment in your life. I love you all so much and send out this message of hope every day that I am alive. Jim Croce Don’t Mess Around with Jim