This is my fifth summer living in this house, and every year I fought with this beautiful magenta clematis vine with blooms as big as my hands. I wanted to be in control, and for my world to be compartmentalized and put in order, with trees over here and vines over there. At least once a week every summer, I pulled the clematis out of the weeping cherry tree and retrained it into the fence, only to have new vines reaching up into the welcoming arms of the tree.
This summer I gave up. The spring weather was bad, I was fussing more over my vegetable garden, and I just plain gave up fighting it. And wouldn’t you know it, but almost every single person that’s come over has stopped, gasped, and exclaimed how beautiful that vine is, growing into the tree the way it is!
I don’t have a sense of humor about a lot of things pertaining to my control issues, but I had to laugh at that one.
I’ve been realizing this year while watching my own yard, that gardening has taught me a lot about parenting and life in general…Much of what I planned (planted) has not happened, and some things have grown that I did not plant, but in places the yard is becoming beautiful with a freedom and grace I couldn’t have planned or imagined…