A Season of Abundance and Exhaustion
Some Things I Wrote In August and Then Didn’t Post
I was just sitting down to write a post about dahlias and came across this post I started in August and never finished. Instead of deleting it, I figure I’ll share it and then give a few updates. And then I’ll post about my dahlias in the next week or so.
Here’s what I wrote:
“It was a mere three months ago that I was crouched down on the ground tucking hundreds of seeds and tubers somewhat neatly into the soil—giving each one a tiny blessing and willing it to grow. Ahh, such energy and ambition I had back then.
But this time of year, when things are so abundant, including the flowers I started from seeds and tubers back in May, I am plumb tuckered out. I am suffering from ‘August wilt,’ a term I adapted from one of my gardening heroes (Kristin Kimball of Essex Farm in Essex, NY), or, as the Japanese would call it, ‘natsubate,’ which translates to ‘summer fatigue’ or ‘summer exhaustion.’ I long for a day of steady rain when I am not tempted at all to go outside.
A week and a half after the fact, I am still recovering from a hot and humid, jam-packed, 12-hour day when I gardened for two hours in the morning in my collective garden, then picked buckets of flowers, then arranged flowers, then went back out and picked more flowers, then made more flower arrangements, and then awkwardly socialized for hours while hosting my first-ever flower event.
Some flowers from a flower event I hosted at my studio.
Recently, I found a cucumber in my purse that had been languishing in there unrefrigerated for multiple days. I cut off the wrinkly parts and ate it. A few days later, a tomato met the same fate in the bowels of my purse. I want to eat as many carbohydrates and sugar as I possibly can. I sometimes forget what day it is. I find myself longing for a romantic partner to lighten my load a little bit. I’m pooped from handling the regular day-to-day by myself, while also managing two side hustles. I’m juggling the duality of loving my life wholeheartedly and being completely exhausted by it.
Thinking of all of this, I am reminded of something that a friend said to me years ago as she accompanied me via smartphone as I partook in my nightly hour-long ritual of squishing potato beetles.
‘Why do I do this every year?!’ I asked her frustrated with my back hurting from bending over so much. ‘You do it because you have hope,’ she said matter-of-factly. It’s true. I do have hope, and to be honest, there’s nothing I would rather do in the warmer months than garden.”
That’s as far as I got with that blog post.
It’s October now and all I want to do is eat pizza and stay inside and wave a magic little wand and have my gardens be all tucked away. I continue to be exhausted. Two days from now, I have plans to plant appx. 400 tulip bulbs and the day after that I have plans to dig up my dahlia tubers and get them ready for winter storage. I feel like I am 47 going on 74.
But in a month or so, I’m sure I’ll be longing to go outside. And six months from now I’ll feel like a little kid again—just itching to get outside to get as dirty as possible and waiting on the edge of my seat for my first flowers to poke through the soil. I can’t wait!