Osler's Razor

I know people, like my mother, who are wonderful gardeners.  They have a talent for choosing plants to go here or there, the way my father plays with color and shape when he paints.

Then there are the rest of us.  I plant things, and sometimes they come up and sometimes they don't.  Often, my plants languish, never quite getting to the point where they look like the picture on the seed package.  In Texas, I tried every year to get something to come up right-- tomatoes, beans, carrots-- and almost always failed.  I produced one tiny green tomato that was eaten by a small creature.

Every year, I felt a profound sense of disappointment.  I mean that in the truest sense, that the disappointment was profound, because it was a deep and meaningful disappointment.  It was a reminder each year that I did not control what happens in the dirt, that sometimes I fail, and that the amount I need to learn is much greater than what I know.  More than anything, gardening for someone like me is humbling, and that is a good thing.

I will try again this year and plant some things in pots and in the yard.  Some will come up and others won't.  I will celebrate the ones that grow, and remain humbled by the rest.