Digging up my roots.

Early this year when snow was still falling, I decided to give my black thumb one last chance at growing plants from seed. Real gardening supplies were not yet on store shelves, so I turned a styrofoam egg carton into a seed starter. I'd read that impatiens take a long time to start from seed, so I planted them early as recommended. My baby seedlings sprouted quickly. I watered and rotated those pups often so that they'd grow evenly. As soon as I could find seed starting kits, I bought a couple and planted those too. Seed trays were threatening to take over my dining room table.

My little green gems took a long time to grow leaves. About half of the plants died. I remained patient with my remaining young impatiens. Once it was warm enough outside, I began putting the trays out in the sun for increasingly long periods of time. After training the babies to live outdoors, I gave them new homes in pretty planters around the fence of the patio.

I watered and fertilized them often...and still no flowers bloomed. By this time, mature potted flowers were beginning to show up at stores everywhere. Some frauds stir water, oil, and eggs into cake mix and call themselves bakers. Not me! Similarly, I couldn't buy ready-made, just-add-water flowers and call myself a gardener. After what seemed like an eternity of looking at skimpy, flowerless stalks and leaves, I became impatient with my impatiens.

Yes, I did the unthinkable; I broke down and bought beautifully blossoming impatiens plants from the store! I came home and didn't even give my babies an explanation. I ripped them out of their pots and discarded their battered bloomless bodies in the woods just past the walkway that leads to the front door.

Without even giving them time to process what had just happened to them, I quickly replaced them with the bountiful new plants. The patio was instantly beautified and I was instantly satisfied.

Fast forward several months... I'm walking out of the door one morning to go to work. There in the woods, just past the walkway, I see the most beautiful bright flowers. They almost look like...impatiens. I realize that these used to be the barren, flowerless, pathetically skinny stalks that I ripped out in spring. I tore them out by their roots and tossed them into the woods like waste, expecting them to rot and degrade into the earth. They didn't. Their roots found a new home and flourished.

I'm no longer engaged to the person with whom I thought I'd build my life and my future. I've left what was my home. My roots are exposed now but I know they'll find their way soon enough.

My Friend's Divorce by Naomi Shihab Nye
I want her
To dig up
every plant
in her garden,
the pansies, the penta,
roses, rununculas,
thyme and the lilies,
the thing
nobody knows the name of,
unwind the morning glories
from the wire windows
of the fence,
take the blooming
and the almost-blooming
and the dormant,
especially the dormant,
and then
and then
plant them in her new yard
on the other side
of town
and see how
they breathe!