Like the inevitability of the seasons themselves, the last dregs of winter are the beginning of my garden daydreams. Each year I sit and go through seed and nursery catalogs imagining the garden that could be. This year feels a little different. My planning has a mixed vibe of survivalism and community.
I live in a Twin Cities suburb. My neighborhood was built in the 1950s – a street lined with Linden trees and cookie cutter small ranch houses. They used to be called starter homes, but I’ve been here 25+ years and my next door neighbors are the original owners of their house. Most of my neighbors have historically been white and of Germanic/Scandinavian ancestry. That is fortunately changing – diversity in the world and in the garden makes everything better – more resilient and adaptable. But between midwestern polite aloofness and six months of inclement weather, I don’t know much about my neighbors.
What I do know about the people around here I learned from working in the garden. People comment and ask questions or feel chagrin as their dog makes a pit stop. It’s an opportunity to interact that comes rarely these days. My front yard is an ongoing struggle. I replaced most of the lawn with perennials 20 years ago and spend hours trying to corral it into an aesthetic that looks like I have a plan. The neighbor allowed a volunteer tree to grow that is now blocking much of the sun my flowers once knew. My fondness for feeding yard critters means that the nicest flowers last a day before being nibbled to a stub. It’s not consistently attractive, although it has its moments. Every spring I decide that this is going to be the year. This will be the year when I read up on gardening advice, amend the soil properly, really dig in and organize my wildly chaotic garden.
I ordered some galvanized steel raised beds to accommodate my aging back and to fend off the backyard nibblers. I’ve ordered seeds and plants from local nurseries. I’m trying to keep the three new trees alive that we planted last year (2 apple and a paper birch). It seems frivolous to be getting giddy over all the new life that is just around the corner as a wave of recession and oppression roll across the land. Perhaps I hope that some long term planning will bear us out in the end, but what I do know is that I can give extra strawberries and tomatoes to neighbors. I can talk to them when they pass and I’m smiling (I’m so ridiculously happy when covered in dirt). These passing acknowledgements are a nod to our humanity in a world that increasingly wants us to see each other as enemies.
If you’re like me and paying attention to what’s happening in our country, joy feels in very short supply. While I’ve been doing activism for some years, as an introvert, I’m not particularly successful. I provide a lot of behind-the-scenes support due to my tech skills, some disposable income, and a fierce belief that it is my personal responsibility to not twiddle my thumbs if there is injustice anywhere. But I am exhausting to be around at times and lately, completely insufferable. It’s activist conversation borne of the shock that so many people don’t seem to know what’s happening. These conversations are critical, but they usually leave me drained and rather miserable.
Activism is about connecting issues you care about to the people you talk to and finding shared actions. There is activism that can be joyful and sourced from things you love. For me, it’s books and writing and nature and gardening. Because above all, activism is about finding community. By leaning into what you love to do, building connections with people who love the same things, and developing an affinity for people and the things they care about. Some kinds of resistance to authoritarianism are uncomfortable. I hate going to protests. I hate making phone calls. I hate meetings. And I am not a risk-taker. I do those things, but I have to remember those are not the only things.
Perhaps this is all a giant rationalization to say that I desperately want to escape into a world that gives me joy. I’m so very, very tired already and the road ahead is long. It will take a lot to find our way to a more equitable world. It won’t happen in a lifetime or several. This is where, as a writer, I see the rich metaphors about process and outcomes. In anything we do, the process is the only place where we have choices.
I can plan and plant and care for my garden – those moments give me real joy, but I am not guaranteed beauty or a bountiful harvest. I can talk to people, call my reps, hold my signs for hours, but there is no guaranteed release from the authoritarian, billionaire grift. Still, to be silent and not moved to action feels intolerable. To do nothing while people are trafficked to inhumane, profitable prisons, others criminalized for who they are, the marginalized erased from history, all while our national coffers are being drained of resources – to stand still for any of this feels like learned helplessness.
We must plant the seeds, have the conversations, and find whatever actions within our bailiwick that we can do – no matter how small. Some of it will be difficult, but not all. Balancing grim determination with the lightness of what gives us love, joy, and hope is sustained resistance to the bleak world that the oligarchy is driving us towards. Grow, create, design, write, dance, sing, sew, fix, paint – keep a tight hold of the things that keep you rooted in your humanity.
For me, that’s time in the garden – a moment when the hum of bees and the smell of the soil connect me to this world that I love. A world that is worth fighting for.
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