Piedmont Gardener

Astrological summer begins today with the solstice, marking the longest day of the growing season in the northern hemisphere. It would be easy for me to pretend that this summer is like those that came before. Abundant, fertile life surrounds me. Flowers bloom, bees buzz, tomatoes ripen, peaches become ice cream by the magic of hand-churning, and fireflies provide their nightly light show, blinking first low among the bushes, then rising ever higher as darkness deepens until they twinkle in the tree canopy like low-flung stars.

Summer air in North Carolina where I grew up and still live is thick with humidity and the scent of Southern Magnolias and gardenias. Evening thunderstorms rattle windows with thunder and pounding rain, then move on to leave fresh puddles for morning splashing expeditions. Especially at dawn and dusk, bird song lifts the heart. Soon, as summer heat takes firm hold, perpetual cicada thrumming will dominate the airwaves – the white noise of summer – ideal for lulling weary bodies to sleep.

As I harvest the first tomatoes and beans of the season, it would be easy to imagine this summer is like those that came before, but it is not. While plants and animals attempt to carry on their lives as usual, humanity on Planet Earth is in turmoil. It is easy to feel overwhelmed, and for those of us living comfortably safe lives, it is tempting to pretend that nothing has changed. But, of course, everything has changed.

This is not really new information. As I’ve described in this blog before, experts have been exhorting humanity for numerous decades to start caring for the planet while there is still time to reverse the damage wrought by deforestation, pollution, and the myriad other wounds inflicted on the blue-green orb we all share. Overpopulation – another humanity-inflicted wound – inevitably results in diseases that round the globe breathtakingly quickly. Our world is very ill.

I am a life-long gardener and lover of the natural world. I’m also a professional writer. Confronted by this ailing world, I continue to garden, to walk beneath the great trees, to watch for newly fledged birds and tiny froglets still sporting tadpole tail nubs. New life, a ripe tomato, a perfect sunrise, they lift my heart. I try to share these sights and feelings via words and photos here and on social media as one way I can work to heal our ailing world. I pray it lifts up a few other souls at least a bit.

As a white child growing up in North Carolina during the time when schools underwent desegregation, I was angry and confused more than once when I saw and heard acts of discrimination. My parents explained what I saw as acts of ignorant people, and they told me often that black lives matter – not with those exact words, but they always made it clear that humans were all the same and all deserved equal treatment. I am not pretending to believe I understand how those discriminated against feel. As a child, I was only intermittently aware of the black-white dynamic around me. I am currently in the process of trying to better understand my childhood years by writing a memoir. It’s how we writers work through things – we write about them. I have no idea if the result will ever see the light of day. I write to better understand what I experienced – cheaper than psychotherapy. I write because it is who I am and one of the ways I reflexively respond to pain and suffering.

As a gardener whose vegetable garden inevitably produces more than my family can eat and/or preserve, I take excess garden bounty to my local food bank. Almost all the food banks in my area now have storage capacity for fresh fruits and vegetables. Anyone with a garden can do this – feed a few hungry souls. Do call first; procedures have changed in this pandemic era.

This summer solstice marks a season like no other I’ve seen in my lifetime. As I’ve described, I am choosing to savor the season and cultivate compassion by sharing food with the hungry and by sharing my Green World with readers who follow my scribblings. Some of you are cultivating compassion by sewing masks, donating blood, marching for justice.

I pray that those of us who survive this turbulent time hold on to these compassionate urges and teach them to our children and grandchildren. This is a summer like no other. May we all savor the sweet and the bitter and continue to re-imagine a planet free of hatred.