Planting the Future

Chores simply must get done, what can you do?

Every winter since I moved out of the city and into a place that allowed me to let loose, planting-wise, I have spent an enormous amount of time and energy mapping out my garden. Each year it’s grown, adding new containers, meticulously graphing out the microclimates of the second-floor deck where all 15+ felt tubs live as my own version of raised beds. It’s a lot of work, and it usually brings me joy, thinking through what will grow best and what was less of a success in the previous year. It’s a satisfying, tactile pursuit that works as a contrast to my all-digital day job as a creative director. I have always enjoyed working with my hands, whether with a trowel or a needle, or a pen.

Seeds are the cheapest form of hope, and more reliable and satisfying than a scratch ticket, though the prizes won are apples and oranges. Some seeds will not sprout. Some will sprout so fast I panic that I cannot plant them out before they outgrow their little paper pots on the potting bench. Because I am but one woman in an apartment, I often start my seeds all in one go and stagger them in different trays with different levels of moisture, heat, and light, so I can grow both tomatoes and buckwheat at the same time. I trade convenience against the actual rules of planting things out because I have other horrible chores like laundry and dishes to do to keep my life running while I watch things grow. The work of getting on with life is, as we all know, relentless and ever-increasing.

The past few springs, I have needed that cheap hope more than I ever did in my twenties, which had their own concerns but did not much overlap with a pandemic, a general collapse of my faith in the social order, familial responsibilities, etc. I will not dive into those in detail here, as we are all in the soup together, and also, those details are why there is a two-year gap between my last morning report and this one. Everyone in my life has coped differently with viewing the future through the narrow pinpoint of this weird, pervasive camera obscura. I never once pretended to know what to do or what was coming, which was not exactly a respite, but the plants continued to grow and the cursed laundry continued as well, and I was frankly quite glad to do that instead of being in the business of actually having to predict the future.

The anticipation of the future is a tricky business I will leave to people who are smarter than myself. It seems like a nightmare of a burden, and very time-consuming, and I would rather use my hands in the dirt. Famously, if watching the future is your talent, you often suffer the disbelief of those who don’t. But even as Cassandra stared into the future from her place on high, she was camped up there long enough that she ate and slept and lived while she did so (despite her end.) The means as she did, the people around her must have dug around in the dirt as well, planting seeds even though someone with a better vantage point than them could have told them things would not work out the way they hoped. Those people did their own terrible piles of laundry and cooked their meals and cared for their loved ones, regardless of the fact that someone, somewhere, knew the future wasn’t rosy. It wasn’t negligence — it was just that someone still had to pay attention to the present, and I’m not sure you can do that AND keep both eyes on what’s coming. A person only has so many eyes and hands, you’ve simply got to divide up the work.

Someone had to till the field, plant the seed, harvest and sift and bake so the seer could have her bread. Someone did the daily work of reaping and watching and fleecing and retting spinning so the people in charge of the future (plus everyone else) could go into it clothed, no matter how somber or plain. And the work of creating the future happened in that moment because no wheat planted now means no bread to eat in whatever future is coming. For some of us, creating the future means the big, important work and for some of us, that means doing the mundane things. Realistically, we all do a mix of both and that’s the messy reality of life. The future looms for all of us, on some days more threateningly than others.

To stare at the future so long you let your hands go idle in the moment is as destructive a temptation as to ignore it altogether. This winter, I did a lot less planning and a lot less reading about gardens. Frankly, I did a lot less dreaming of the future altogether. The future feels fragile at large and at home. I did not feel like I had the space in a head full of bees and panic to think gently about what I could sow in the spring and summer, let alone harvest in the fall. I forced myself through the boring work of collating all my seeds, of which I have too many because I am addicted to potential and possibility. I sat down for a sunny afternoon in a false spring and sorted through all the options, picking bits of the future on gut instinct and overplanting to give myself options. I even sorted out what needed to be directly sown to be set aside for the point at which real spring rolls around.. I did it even though I could only see a dire future for myself and the world because, after the past few years, we all know what it’s like to like the future strike you blind. I almost let it get me again this spring. You’d think I’d learn my lesson by now: you still need to eat, sleep, and dress yourself when the future feels uncertain. If you do not tend to that, who will?

Maybe even Cassandra had to wash the windows, turn over the mattress, whitewash the walls to keep the present livable. Or maybe she was so busy, so distraught, that someone had to do it for her. It’s hard work to anticipate the unknown; it feels like a full-time job lately. I know now the work of living can’t go undone too long before both you and your life unravel. (I cannot stress enough how much laundry I still need to do after trying to ignore it for weeks.) While I am doing the dishes and packing away the sweaters and scrolling all the while, I do find myself wondering when other people are busy watching the future, if they forgot to water the plants too.

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It’s been a while! Hi. No promises, but I hope you enjoyed this.

If you want to support my writing, you can pick up a copy of my work in the new Catapult anthology Body Language, which features an essay about my sewing practice.

I was also recently selected as an Aspen Words Emerging Writer Fellow by the Aspen Institute, which is quite exciting. I am in excellent company.

Nice as always to see you. Til next time!