How the garden grows

It's been nine weeks since I could look at my garden. I have let it go kind of wild this spring--a decision I made before the accident which turned out to be a wise path. Mark looks at it but wouldn't pull a weed if his life depended on it. Well, yes, maybe under those circumstances he would, but he's not, never has been, never will be a garden or yard person. His (now, with the desert heat) daily watering of my flowers has been a pain for him, but now he sees the hibiscus blooms and has a sense of joy in being part of their flowering.

But today, I cautiously walked out back to see the garden. It is almost lush. The two berry plants that survived the winter are branching upward against the side of the house like vines. The dill is flowering and chocolate mint has become full ground cover. I can't quite see my dwarf pomengranite bush and I may have to ask Aron to cut back some of the mint, so the bush has room to grow. Several euchalyptus plants are now also growing and that's where I think the garden is headed, eventually--tall euchalyptus with some small bushes beneath. Of course the rosemary is huge again and I will eventually be using the herbs in cooking once I am back on both legs.

Good news on that element of my life: I can start bearing weight on my ankle so now I have to get out of the hopping habit and trust the bones that, apparently, are mended enough so that my doctor encouraged these next steps. For the first time in 9 friggin' weeks, I had a good night's sleep WITHOUT the boot. I thought, maybe I would "miss" the weight of it, but not so, thank goodness. During the day, as I walk more, I will be using the boot and, if all goes well, boot but no walker in two weeks. I will be using the boot until we get back from Colorado, but I can live with that.

Last night, Mark and I went to our neighborhood pool to see if that will be a pool therapy option for me. It's the first time in 11 years he has even been IN our pool. He enjoyed it and it was kinda fun--as I wrote yesterday, "fun" has been missing from my daily grind. But both of us believe healing is happening. His elbow is slowly getting better and, as I have described, so is my ankle. I have other "internal" healing to do: reassess and reframe my worklife since current work seems suspended; consider how I do some creative writing, not as a task but as something I want to do; add more physical activity to my trips to the Y and to my life at home.

I guess, like my garden, it's time to trust my roots and grow.