It's hard not to look at the garden right now as simply wreckage. After weeks of 90 degree heat, sporadic rain, and a certain amount of neglect, it has truly "declined in use, status, and utility due to lack of care." This is the actual definition of the phrase "to go to seed," when used as an idiom - as in "the house has gone to seed and will be condemned." Or "He really went to seed after the break-up."
But in the actual case of living things, this is not necessarily the end of the story. For one thing, I could care for the annuals in the garden till the cows come home and sooner or later they would move along the life cycle and go to seed, having fulfilled their function and bequeathing their life-force to the next generation. I think it's safe to say that new life often springs from human wreckage as well. The process has given birth to well-worn metaphors about the darkness and the dawn, rock bottom and recovery, phoenixes and ashes. It's a fact of life, and it's going to happen regardless of how much one cares.
It's also a fact of death. Children may be our seeds, biologically speaking - but there are also all the people profoundly touched by a human life well-lived, or even not so well-lived. Some our life stories may end up being mainly cautionary tales, but if we live them honestly, that's not such a bad thing either. Our deaths end our personal story, but our part in the Big Story goes on.
Having a front yard garden - or a parking lot garden - in North Florida is a little like living your life out loud. Your hopes and dreams are out there on the curb in April, apparently triumphant around late May, and publicly falling apart by July. So it goes. One hopes that some of those dried-up and dead-looking seeds may find fertile ground and take root next season, and that we might learn a little something - that things fall apart, for instance, and that there's hope.
Amen! I comment so rarely, but truly enjoy the reflections and photos. Thanks for letting us into a glimpse of your lives, seeds and all...
Posted by: Kristi | July 25, 2010 at 09:58 PM