Reflections

OUR EXPRESSIONS STEM FROM THE GARDEN

Do you consider yourself a “late bloomer”? Do you talk about “weeding out” the “deadwood” in your life? Some of the most colorful and common expressions in our language can be traced back to the human fascination with gardens and gardening.
Close to 3 million internet sites collect garden phrases. Among the most popular: The grass is always greener. . .; separating wheat from the chaff; everything’s coming up roses; to lead someone up or down the garden path; reaping what we sow; a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush; life isn’t always a bed of roses; to be sitting on the fence when it comes to making a decision; a plain old ‘garden-variety’ item or experience; or the opinion that something is for the birds. What is about gardens that call out to us even in the language of the everyday? For starters, like the proverbial pigs in mud, the prospect of playing in the dirt speaks to the inner child in all of us. My husband grew up in New York City with glass-strewn alleys and open hydrants in the summer heat for his playground. But he still speaks with borderline awe of the tiny patch of immaculate grass his father treasured outside their walk-up apartment. As a boy, it was his job to trim it as needed with a household shears.
As a Midwestern native, I was never far from the earth. We filched berries out of gardens along the block and held neighborhood parades waving the stalks and jumbo leaves of rhubarb for flags. Nothing ever tasted quite as good as beans or pea pods right off the plant. I can close my eyes and remember exactly what the puddles felt like under my bare toes after a hard summer rain.
Scientists have documented the healing sight of green things growing on the human psyche. Travel agents can testify to the power of Fall color tours and the changing of the seasons to ignite our imaginations.
I write this as many of us will soon be agonizing over putting our gardens to bed for the season. Maybe it is time to just stand dead still amid those rows of veggies or beds of perennials and enjoy. In the low September light, golds and yellows, mauves and rusts have never seemed brighter than in the beds of mums flowering at their peak. The sedum is thrusting its filagreed flower heads high enough to outwit the snows that are bound to follow.
The gardener in us understands the necessity of winter, even as we mourn a summer past. We set our emotional clocks by the seasons. And ready or not, the smells and sights and sounds of change are in the air all around us. Words alone cannot hope to do them justice.