by Sara Barry | Jan 21, 2015 | garden, winter, writing
The garden is covered in snow and a sheet of ice. Stonework, fencing, the plants I didn’t cut back the only things showing where it should be. Garden books and seed
catalogs are stacked by my chair. It’s time to dream
I dream of green:
Lettuce and spinach
Peas
Cilantro
I wonder how my garlic, planted in the fall, is doing. I imagine where the tomatoes will go. I contemplate new beds for fresh strawberry plants.
My garden sleeps, and I dream.
This time of year, I read about new projects, new things to grow, new ways to grow it. I choose seeds. I just dream of warm days, moist earth, and green growth. And I wait.
This dormant time, this slow down, this dream time matters. The garden needs it. We do too. I tend to forget this. I need to turn off the computer and get outside for a walk (that one’s been tough lately). I find new energy as I move slowly through yoga again and go to bed earlier. I soak in hot baths and am mesmerized by the fire.
It looks like doing nothing, but a lot is happening. Resting, gathering energy, letting things move within you that are too busy when you are busy busy busy gogogo. Take time to daydream. Let yourself rest and go quiet like the garden does. Let your energy gather for more growth.
Take a walk, in woods or by water if you can. Mediate or do some yoga. Shut off your computer and tablet and phone. Let go of your list. Pour yourself a cup of coffee or tea or wine. Sip. Contemplate.
Then if you want, doodle, draw, or write in a journal.
For your journal
Try one of these prompts or words:
Imagine
I dream of
Garden
Grow
- Write the word or phrase at the top of the page and create a list or freewrite starting from it.
- Write it in the middle of the page. Circle it and add other words and ideas branching off it.
- Write it in the middle of the page and spiral your thoughts outward.
Be dreamy, be open. Don’t edit or censor. Just write and see what comes out.
What are you dreaming of these days?
by Sara Barry | Oct 29, 2014 | fall, garden, what I love
The other day I was out in the garden in a misty almost sprinkle.
I had to drag my self off the couch, away from the computer, out into the gray. I didn’t want to go out, but I knew the garlic needed to be planted.
For years, I’ve said I should grow garlic but come October or November, I’m not programmed to plant. I’m programmed to harvest and preserve. I’m pushing myself to get the garden cleaned up before it gets too cold. I’m ready to nestle inside with something in the oven to warm the house and meet my need for comfort food.
But this past weekend, I pushed myself out into the mess of weeds and the fallen leaves choking the bed where I planted late lettuce.
I looked at the carrots ready to be pulled and the potatoes ready to be dug. I noticed the three green pumpkins on wilted vines, dry grass, and wilted weeds, and the cosmos and zinnias that had finally succumbed to the cold.
“Garlic,” I reminded myself, and I started to dig.
I loosened the soil and dug weeds just where I needed to. I rolled the creaky old wheelbarrow over to the open face of the compost pile and pushed aside the mulched leaves my husband has started to pile there.
I added the compost to my beds, pressed the paper sheathed garlic into the soft, cold ground. I didn’t worry about watering. The weather would do it for me.
I worked until my glasses started getting to spotted, and I found myself smiling and relaxed and invigorated. Instead of a chore, I was doing what I loved. I was outside, moving my body, gettin my hands dirty. I starting something new during a time of wrap up, getting ready for winter and getting ready for spring.
I should get out there today. It’s not even raining.
Write with Me Wednesday
Write
What makes smile, even unexpectedly? Write about something you love doing even though it’s uncomfortable or messy or hard or mundane. You might start with
What do you love doing once you get yourself get started?
by Sara Barry | Aug 25, 2014 | finding time, garden, summer, what I love, writing
- My early morning quiet time with coffee and my writing notebook
- This post about another writer’s mornings
- The height and color in my garden
- The canning cupboard shelves filling up
- Space I’ve cleared (bye-bye clutter—it’s a slow process)
- An abundance of hot peppers—stuff them with a mixture of cream cheese, cheddar, and a spicy sausage and bake until the cheese is good and melty.
- Notes and writing from friends with details about moments they will remember and the texture of their days.
What are you loving in these last days of August?
by Sara Barry | Aug 6, 2014 | finding time, garden, writing
I worked in my garden this morning, just for an hour and a half. I cut zinnias and cosmos, a golden sunflower and coreopsis. I harvested the zucchini I had somehow missed. I tugged out weeds here an there. I picked the peas that seem to be starting again though I thought the plants were all dying back. I cut the last of the lettuce and pulled the plants.
Once I did pulled the lettuce, there was a little brown patch, dappled with sunlight coming through the branches of the maple that shades the very back of the garden. It was clear of green, clear of weeds. It was a tiny patch of possibility.
It’s getting late for planting. I’ve never gotten the hang of the fall planting thing. But there was a little bare patch, and I sprinkled it with lettuce and spinach seed. I sifted compost through my fingers to cover it—1/4 inch, ½ inch. I picked up the blue plastic watering can, the one with red duct tape holding on the nozzle, and wetted the soil. As I did in the spring, I’ll wait to see if they grow.
I keep thinking of that little clear space, two feet maybe, by one and a half. Possibility and breathing room. My garden is overgrown. My neighbor kindly reminded me that that was okay, as long as my plants were bigger than the weeds. She’s right. It seems to be working mostly, but still, I want to make space for those plants, keep them from getting lost. That patch is clear with space to grow. I think I need to clear more space around me inside and out, to make space for possibility, to make space to breathe and grow.
Your Turn
Write with Me:
Start with an image that has stuck with you today or over time. One image lets us start small and tight. Show us the image—use your senses. Turn it around and look at another angle. Wonder about it. Is it impressive? Disturbing? Why does it stick with you?
Share It:
Share your writing in the comments, add a link to your blog, or email me at sarabarrywrites@gmail.com.
Ready to keep writing? Try Summer Stories in 5 Minutes.
by Sara Barry | Jul 30, 2014 | canning, garden, summer, writing
It’s the time of year when fruit flies are destined to take over the universe—or at least your kitchen. It’s the time of year when you keep cooking and canning and freezing trying to stay ahead of those fruit flies. It’s the time of year when your compost bucket fills up every day, more than once.
It’s the time of year when long green veggies pile up in your kitchen. You Google “zucchini recipes” and that poem by Marge Piercy. You’re not handing them out to anybody who walks by. Not quite yet.
It’s the time of year when peach juice drips down your chin and blueberries stain your fingers purple. Your arms are crisscrossed with scratches from raspberry brambles, but you don’t care.
It’s the time of year when lawn mowers rumble through dinner time and the evening insects are quieter as darkness settles. It’s the time of year when you should be cursing the heat and humidity, but tonight it feels like fall. Not yet. Not yet.
It’s the time of year when you want to sit outside and do nothing, but the garden calls and the squash and the beans and the cucumbers on the counter call. It’s the time of year when you stir pots in steamy kitchens (and love it) and wait for that tiny ping that makes you smile each time.
It’s the time of year when years ago you were waiting for your baby’s surgery, waiting to start the life you expected (almost), and you wonder now if that old anxiety is in you still. You know it’s there still in December, but in July, when you were scared but still hopeful? You don’t know. So you do what you did that year. You chop the summer fruit and cook it down and put it in jars. You did it that year because you needed something “normal” to hold on to. You do it now because it’s that time of year.
Your Turn
Write with Me:
It’s the time of year when . . . How does that sentence end for you? What are the sights, sounds, smells, and tastes of this time of year? What’s happening in this season, in your life right now? Let it be loose and rough, but keep writing and see what comes up.
Share It:
Share your writing in the comments, add a link to your blog where you write about this time of year, or email me at sarabarrywrites@gmail.com. I’d love to hear this time of year is like for you.
Ready to keep writing? Try Summer Stories in 5 Minutes.
by Sara Barry | Jun 17, 2014 | good enough gardening, writing
I’m on the porch watching a butterfly and bumble bee dancing through the rhododendron. My knees (and shins and feet) are still dirty from the garden. The garden that I thought would never get planted is a sea of green, the peas and greens and broccoli lost among the weeds. I look at all those weeds and think of the laundry piled up and the bags still to unpack from my weekend trip and the make up work that got sidelined as I focused on my dad’s health and my mom’s retirement party, and I’m overwhelmed.
My kids are exhausted and volatile from staying up too late the past two weekends for family events. My big girl is at the end of preschool. I don’t know if this transition is more momentous for me than her. And they are out of sorts, not quite getting the seriousness of the situation with my dad, but sense my stress and distracted attention.
So I look at that weeding that needs to get done and the laundry piles and the bags to be unpacked. I look at all the items that got shifted from my to-do list to my do-later list. I’ve barely written the past weeks, and I didn’t run at all last week, even though I know these two things help keep me balanced.
I don’t even know where to start, so I start small: two loads of laundry in the morning, one bag unpacked and tucked away, the quick emails and check ins for work just so I can cross multiple items off the list. Then I went for a run because my body needed it and my mind needed it. I came back with less time to get things done, but more focused, less overwhelmed.
I look at the garden again and decide I’ll start with the peas because they need it most. I work my way through one row and start the next, while my big girl cuts lettuce for a salad. Every time I look up at all the weeds to pull (and the flowers to deadhead and the green beans to plant and . . . ) I take deep breathe and refocus on the row I’m working on. I take a sip of my ice coffee and savor the shade as I dump the weed bucket. I take a break to push my garden helper on the swing, and when her TV show is on, I sit on the porch and watch the butterflies and the bees and take a minute to write, because we both need a little down time. It will all get done—one row, one bag, one load at a time—or I’ll figure out that some of it doesn’t need to get done at all.
Take a minute to write, Just Write.
catalogs are stacked by my chair. It’s time to dream
