Clear the garden

It was a surprising moment of joy.

This middle-aged body just spent two hours bending over and pulling a healthy crop of weeds from an abandoned vegetable garden.

That’s not my typical happy place. But this was different.

The vegetable garden wasn’t always abandoned. In years past, it was a source of tomatoes, peppers, onions, zucchini, peas and spinach. It’s been nice to step out of the house and grab some fresh vegetables.

But the vegetables didn’t appear magically. There was the purchasing of plants and seeds, preparing the soil and then planting, endless watering and weeding, harvesting and cleaning of the vegetables for meal preparation, and freezing surplus produce.

And none of this happens on your time. The vegetables are in control. They tell you when you’ll plant, when you’ll water, and when you’ll harvest. If you disobey, they’ll punish you with diminished returns. A vegetable gardener gets a tiny glimpse of what it takes to be a farmer.

The plan was to continue the small garden until retirement, and then double the size of it. But after falling behind to weeds last year, I called it quits. Vegetable gardening is enjoyable, but there are so many other things I enjoy more.

Including time to just sit and think. Meditation might be too strong of a word for it, but I do relish sitting outdoors and taking in the beauty of country living with silence that is broken only by the sounds of nature.

I decided I wanted a flower garden instead, with a bench to enjoy it. That was September.

Now it’s July. Between wet weather, a busy schedule, and a bit of procrastination, the garden conversion got delayed.

The weeds were pretty happy about that, and it made the first step of the transformation a challenge.

But after clearing the garden of its weeds, I felt…joyful.

Because even though I had many hours of work still ahead of me, I now knew that the flower garden was actually going to happen. There was no going back. Allowing the garden to idle again would have produced an unacceptable new batch of weeds. It was the point of no return.

And that’s the best place to be.

Like so many things in life—starting a new job, opening a new business, going back to college, embarking on a new health or fitness program, tackling a major household project, exploring a new hobby—it all begins with a committed, first step.

Make sure the new plan or idea is what you truly want. Then, start. And feel good about it. Because it turns out that happiness can simply be a new beginning. Even with the knowledge that your life may be more difficult or strenuous for a while. You’ve done what is most needed. You set your plan in motion.

And now the road to accomplishment can rise up to meet you.

Just clear the garden.