Resilience, Joy, Resistance
“You’re just in a period of low resilience,” a very wise and kind-hearted friend told me last summer.
Perimenopause sometimes feels like a persistent near-death experience, given its multitude of scary symptoms, so I think about what it means to build resilience often. That’s further compounded by the state of the world, where I see thriving in perimenopause as another form of resistance, like joy. As we try to make sense of our place in, our advocacy against, our resistance to the unraveling of this country, my perimenopausal political angst is rising. Perhaps, then, resilience is its own form of resistance.
The Grass Killers
We had grass when we moved into our high elevation, river valley home in 2021. But houses don’t come with manuals, or tips and tricks collected over the years by their former owners and caregivers. So we missed the memo on, “oh, but you must prolifically water said yard to keep that grass.”
It’s not a bad thing, though, to have left that monoculture greenscape behind. While our yard looks like crap, it’s full of pollinators and I love that. Screw the aesthetics.
Look around our patchwork yard and it’s a game of is it a weed or wildflower?
Instead of prolific watering, we have prolific dandelion spreading (who ever decided dandelions were weeds, anyway? They’re pretty magical.) And, how did that yarrow jump 20 feet to a new spot? Why is there one little patch of deep maroon flowers amidst the light pink ones?
The Buckets and the Box
Set at an intentionally odd angle, there’s a lovely 4×8 foot oasis, the box my husband, Adam, built, with four buckets augmenting its perimeter. Growing food at 8000 feet is a unique adventure. We’re fortunate to have lots of sun, but also lots of wind, very little rain, not great soil quality, and an overall short growing season.
“Wait until Memorial Day to plant anything,” our neighbor said.
The morning after Memorial Day, I was sure a late frost killed the tiny tomato plants. Stems turned brown, leaves dropped off, and they looked hopeless. I almost gave up on them, but decided to strip them down to one primary stem and see if I could nurse them back to health. One remained in a bucket and one got planted horizontally in the raised bed (the one you see above). (A third didn’t make it.)
The Ukranian Purple variety in the bucket eventually sprouted leaves and started growing again. And then the first flower arrived. Then more flowers. And now, two tomatoes are growing.
These 32 square feet have brought me so much childlike joy, wonder, and are daily reminders of resilience. The other day, for example, I was giddy when I discovered this sneaky cucumber hiding under the vines (the first of the season).
All of this to say, if the tomatoes can beat the frost, I don’t have to be ruled by my fear and anxiety.
XOXO,
Becca
