It smells funny in here today. By ‘here’ I mean my studio/office and by ‘funny’ I mean not like the paint it usually smells of. It’s slightly stale in here, like beans drying by the window when there hasn’t been much sun to help things along.
As a child, I watched The Good Life with love and admiration. It contained the two things I wanted more than anything: a happy marriage and a home that provided for me.
I journeyed along with these things. Marrying and moving to a small farm, having a family and growing a garden, moving again, keeping chooks, growing another garden, and again. And then, ten years ago, once more.
The children are grown now, launching their own Good Life, and now that my studies are finished, I have more time to devote to the garden and my dreams of my Good Life. I get ahead of myself.
In the middle of all of that good-lifing has been my trauma. I don’t just know how to grow a garden because I like it, I know because in the 70s when you were ‘dirt’ poor, that’s what you did. That’s what we did. My mother would dig over our latest yard and plant tomatoes and broad beans. If there were the means, she would put in marigolds as a companion plant. Then, later, it would be tomato sauce and apricot jam from a box of cast-aways someone thought to give her.
When I was quite young I was allowed to plant Bambi seeds and they grew. While Bambi the baby deer was on the packet, it was the multitude of flowers surrounding him that I wanted. My mother dug over the corner I chose and helped me to spread the seeds. Thinking back, it wasn’t a good place for growing, but grow they did. Thanks, in large part, to my mother’s quiet tending.
There is a legend in my family that I am inclined to believe.
For me, that legend starts with my great-grandfather growing a garden in London during World War II. He no doubt grew a garden at other times, but during the war is when I imagine it. They lived on “Death and Poverty” street, as they called it, with a cemetery on one side and the houses of the poor along the other side. And stories of bombs falling and exhuming long-buried bodies. Again, this might be my imagination.
The legend was that my great-grandfather could grow anything. Seeds would only need be near him and they couldn’t help but burst into life. My grandmother, a war bride, also had this gift. She added to her legend status by being able to cook. I still use her recipes.
Then there is my uncle. We chuckle indulgently at the way that you can see his path on planting days. Seeds that have spilled out of his pockets sprout on the path. A line of lettuces or silverbeet.
My mother is almost as gifted but tends more toward managing animals. She calms them. Makes them feel safe. It’s odd how often growing up I wished I was one of her horses.
Then there is me and, I suspect, several of my cousins but I haven’t seen them in a long time and couldn’t say for sure, who seem to carry this family legacy. What grows in my vegie garden is from seed. I find the process of watching seeds sprout and become the thing they are meant to be engrossing and fascinating. It doesn’t always go to plan. The slugs and snails can slow things down, as can the cabbage moth and their hungry offspring.
Watching my children, I can see this gift in one son. I suspect it is in the other. Daughter, however, has declared that she did not inherit any ability with plants at all (the number of succulents I have rescued from her room attests to her observation). Nonetheless, she has a marvelous way with people and will be just fine.
Not everything your trauma has given you is bad.
This was said to me by my supervisor as I was lamenting just how crippled I felt dealing with the legacy of the things that had happened.
He is right.
I had become focused on what had happened and the way that it impacted aspects of my life that others take for granted. This assumes, of course, that if there had been no trauma my life would have been wonderful.
No one’s life is fully wonderful.
We all face challenges. Some are of our own making. Some are the consequences of others’ decisions. Some are simply life.
Our own making refers not only to the decisions we make but to our temperament and personality. As a child, I was curious and adventurous. This meant that I was open to going fishing or rabbit hunting and that I tended toward rule-breaking. I suspect I might have been considered a little wild. These things, in themselves, are simply part of who I am. Put in the situation I was born into, my reactions are natural for me.
Ultimately, my natural independence is probably one of the strongest factors for why my life went the way it did. I have met people with personalities different from mine in similar situations who have had very different journeys from me. Some of them are deeply sad. My heart breaks for them.
Other people’s (talking about perpetrators here) decisions are a tough one. They shouldn’t have done what they did. Full stop. Yes, I understand some of the underlying why but that still isn’t enough to justify wrongdoing. I have choices to make. Will I pursue legal recourse? What boundaries do I need in place to protect myself? How will I let someone else’s actions impact my life? These aren’t easy questions and I might need help figuring out the answers.
Then there is life. Sometimes life is life. And it sucks.
You fall over, break a leg, and need rescuing from a mountain at night time. Or maybe someone crashed into you. Or you accidentally overspent. Or your job has become a bit joyless. Or the cat is sick. Or. Or. Or.
Life does what it will. We enjoy the good times and pick ourselves up and dust ourselves off when it isn’t so good. I am still dusting myself off after losing Josh. Because we didn’t see each other all the time, I keep forgetting that he isn’t there, living his life. Then I remember and the world feels less again.
We keep living and learning.
Our trauma is the worst wrapped “gift” we could ever receive but there, in the bottom of the bag, is something that sparkles just a little. Maybe it is that seeds grow for you. Or that the moon is fully beautiful tonight. Or that somehow you wake up breathing each day.
Not everything is bad.
I promise.
This Writer's Life 