Today is the first truly warm day of the year. The crabapple trees have started to bloom and their branches are heavy with buds. Birds are singing, actually singing (!), as they alight from tree to tree.
The breeze is a breath of fresh air, pushing the smell of spring into the city.
And today is the day that I decided to clean off our balcony and prepare for spring plantings. I find that cleaning out this space is both a physical and emotional activity. Sweeping the floorboards, dusting off the bench and table, putting fresh candles in the candle holders, and changing burned out lightbulbs. Softening the soil, pulling out old growth from last season, adding nutrients and compost to it.
In doing all of these things I am anticipating and meditating on the fact that new things will emerge from this effort. Plants will take root and flourish. New green life will come again from the grey winter season. Regeneration and the promise of renewal is the faith of gardeners. All those who work in the dirt share this sense of promise and purpose.
Gardens provide comfort and calm, they bear nourishment, are inherently beautiful and wild, provide shade in the heat and respite for our souls. Did you know that even in the ghettos of World War II and in the Japanese internment camps, that people planted gardens? They were probably small, maybe these "gardens" were just flowering weeds in a container, but they were symbols of hope...a promise. For those that were trapped, in a world no longer in their control, those gardens were a bit of earth to call their own.
When Grant and I moved to a new town at the beginning of the winter season, I thought our world was ugly and I could picture nothing beautiful. The stress of being newly married, broke, and jobless did not help. But by early spring we had found our feet and I remember one day leaving school and buying plants, out of nowhere. It must have been a day like today, that first touch of spring that compelled me to do it. I worked on the balcony for hours, starting from scratch. I collected rocks from the roads in our apartment complex to irrigate the bottom of my new pots. Breaking up the new soil and carefully pouring it into the pots so as not to spill it onto our downstairs neighbor's porch. Hanging and filling our bird feeder that was a wedding gift. And last, smelling the watered plants as I swept up, a sensory experience that has always been one of my favorites. I remember sitting on the floor amidst my new plants as the sun set and thinking "this will be good, we will make it good".
Our balcony garden is small. I am limited as to what I can plant because it does not receive direct sunlight. Not everything I plant grows. Only hardy plants tend to survive despite my best efforts. But this small, shady balcony garden is mine. It is my bit of earth, my piece of heaven.
