First of August. Summer heat is dissipating in a persistent drizzle that feels heavy like sweating off a fever. Yesterday I gathered windblown mulberries from the ground. Now I’m turning them into vinegar. Today I plan to collect nasturtium seeds, make capers out of them. My chili peppers need harvesting too. They’re burning to become something bold and beautiful, like pickles or fermented sauces, things that can be gifted.
I didn’t preserve much this summer. Didn’t forage much either. I was knee-deep neck-deep in living. Every year I underestimate the intensity of summer with our three young boys at home. There were moments it felt I was gasping for air, and yet I’m grateful for it all too, for the messes and the mayhem and the “mama!”s constantly chiming. For the spontaneous visits and excursions that flowed into something else without thought or hesitation. Even for the weeds that always needed pulling, for they showed me things too.
Like the day I was unraveling bindweed from my hollyhocks. Bindweed is so aggressive, it climbs anything it touches and suffocates it. No matter what I do, I can’t get rid of this invasive weed. And unlike others, bindweed doesn’t improve the soil. It takes nutrients, gives very little back, leaves everything around it impoverished.
As my fingers unraveled the tight tendrils of bindweed from the tall, flower-laden hollyhock stalks, which had been dragged all the way to the ground, I realized…
Bindweed is like that repetitive voice in my head, that harsh critic within. This is what it does to every beautiful thing in my life, to every single thing in bloom, just chokes it out. For decades, I’ve tried to quiet this voice and yet, like bindweed, it keeps popping back up, taking me down.
What is it you want? I asked the pile of long, green bindweed strands. Lying on the grass, they no longer seemed menacing. More like helpless, sad, already withering.
We just want to live, they answered, but I could see the irony in it. What is the use of strangling the life out of the very thing you need to thrive?
And so I began to reconsider how I was relating to my inner voice. As I observed and really listened to bindweed, I began to work with it instead of forcefully trying to eliminate it. Sometimes this meant going deeper into the soil, following root systems beyond root systems, pulling them up into the light of day. Other times it meant simply acknowledging its presence, how resilient it is, how scared of not getting its needs met. I would even ask, What do you need right now? It’s answers often surprised me. I saw more of myself in it. More of us collectively too.
Today is the 9th of October, and I don’t feel at battle anymore. Not with bindweed, and not with my inner voice. They’re both still here, doing their thing, but somehow they’ve become peaceful cohabitants. I’m no longer abusing them, they’re no longer abusing me. I know that, whatever loops they’re in, it isn’t personal, it’s just their way of being seen, heard, or felt.
I laugh at all the tactics I tried before. I laugh at myself for thinking I can control anything when I couldn’t even control my own thoughts. I laugh at how simple it was in the end. All it took was being curious and open-hearted, literally just relating to them differently.
9 weeks and 6 days later, I laugh and laugh at how free I am.
xx
