Finishing Well

I recently engaged in a very personal and meaningful ritual - my annual eve-of-the-hard-frost harvest. It is my chance to go out and love the plants I've tended so carefully one last time, and reap their final benefit to me for the season. It is a sad thing, in many ways, but not without its joys. Yes, I will miss the warm breeze and the feel of sun-baked soil under my toes as I picked ripe tomatoes from the garden for supper. But, I will not miss the sweat-dripping, head-pounding, mind-numbing monotony of pulling weed, after weed, after endless weed. Can I get an amen on that?

This harvest, ostensibly, is simply an act of salvaging what little good is left on that patch of dirt before it gets abandoned. In the past, that is exactly how I've thought of it. This year, however, I'm trying to be more contemplative. (Apparently I am going to get in touch with my inner philosopher in my thirties. Who knew?) Though harvest is about salvaging what is useful, it is also a time to reflect. I made sure to focus, as I picked the last few peppers and tough-skinned eggplant, at how abundant our garden had been this year, how nicely it looked because I took the time to keep it maintained, and how many happy hours it had provided me. I guess you could say that the ritual this time was focused equally as much on the figurative fruits my little plot had provided in life, as it was on the literal ones it had provided for my table.

More than that, however - beyond living in the glorious abundance of that moment, or reflecting on the goodness and benefit of the many months prior -  I also turned my thoughts to the future. Most importantly, I turned my efforts to it as well. You see, in the past I have never put my garden to bed well. Like a thief fleeing from the scene of a crime , I tended to pluck my goodies and run for the hills, leaving the fallout of tangled vines and withered weeds to be worried about the following spring. This year, I left only a clean, bare patch of dirt behind in order that I might be productive next spring when life is bursting forth, rather than scrambling to prepare.

Yes, my garden has been good to me. I planted peppers and egg plants, and harvested wisdom and life lessons. Funny how it works that way, isn't it? Perhaps there are more similarities than we care to admit between finishing a growing season well in your garden, and finishing a growing season well in your life. Babies grow up. Friends move away. Jobs come and go. Relationships change. I don't claim to know all the answers, of course (far from it!), but maybe some of the lessons I learned while scratching around in the dirt this year might be useful as you face your own seasons of life. For example:

This year, I chose not to close my eyes to the inevitable change that the chilly air around me signaled, because the warmth of my eagerly-wished-for sunshine cannot protect me from the frost.  I chose to recognize that sometimes you have to clear things out of your life in order to leave clean and fertile soil for something new to grow - even if those things have been fruitful for you in the past. And, though the freeze may have robbed my garden of the chance for any further growth this season, it certainly doesn't mean that it did the same for me. After all - the end of one season always signals the beginning of another. I'd say, all in all, it's been a good harvest, and I'm very grateful for the fruitfulness it has provided in my life.