As a woman my country is the whole world."
- Virginia Woolf
No one walks alone. Our lives are handmade by the many. Last week, the air smelled just like springtime in Austin, Texas, my home for over twenty years. I wanted to get into the car and drive home, but there is no more home for me there. The clubhouse my son and his grandfather built together, where my son played for hours with neighborhood friends, where my daughter later held tea parties, and where I eventually stored my gardening tools, is being used by a cute four year old named Grant, the son of the new owners.
My raised beds, filled with the most sublime soil that anyone has every touched, were filled with tomatoes, squash, corn, radishes, and carrots, that I planted before I listed my home for sale. Enthusiastic to learn the ways of farming, the new owners asked me for advise. A neighbor tells me that the dirt is barren, no blossoms and no bees are happily using those beds. My flowers are still thriving, and that is a credit to a higher power, the one who designed particular plants for particular lands. The dry creek bed, that serves as the walk to the once upon time this was my house front door, receives footsteps regularly. The new owners are hipsters wanting to return to the land - a corner suburban lot turned into a certified nature habitat - where the smell of pot fills the air more readily than the perfume of compost! Life is an amazing ride!
I miss my home, the smell of my children, the color of the Austin skyline after a storm, and I miss having gardens. My love of nature, inherited from my father, must wait a season longer, as I must wait for my new home in Mexico to be remodeled. In the meantime, I am grateful for the loving friend who gave me four earthy pots so that I can plant herbs, and for my village dump, though an eyesore, for not burying a wonderfully worn giant pot. I am grateful to the friend that wanted to explore this new life with me, for being fearless in our adventures, it brought us to a nestled nursery where I unearthed another ancient pot. I am blessed by a new neighbor, whose father raised Yucatan stingless honeybees, and her willingness to share what has been hers alone for eighty years.
This is your opportunity to acknowledge the women and men who have inspired you to dream, had you laughing so hard that your wine was coming out your nose, and taught you that love could be boundless.
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