I’ve been thinking about everyday things like laundry and weeding as things that never really end. There will always be laundry. There will always be weeds, not as a frustration, but as an honest fact of being alive. Nothing is ever finished.
My friend Nicole wrote about that recently. I’ve been noticing how much I get pulled into convenience without even realizing it. Social media, scrolling, the constant sense that I should be catching up or doing things faster or more efficiently. I don’t move through my days with the same intention I used to.

And Nicole’s words made me pause on that.
Because the truth is, a lot of life is repetitive. Not in a dull way, but in a steady-returning way. Laundry comes back. Weeds come back. Dishes come back. Care comes back. Attention comes back.

Over the last few days, I’ve been outside in my garden again, just tending to things a little at a time. Weeding, resting, coming back when I need to. My body doesn’t move the way it used to, so I’ve been learning to listen to that instead of pushing past it.
There’s something grounding about being in the soil, using my hands, paying attention to what is right in front of me instead of what is trying to pull me elsewhere.

It feels meditative, not the kind of meditation where everything goes quiet, but the kind where your attention settles into something physical and real. Dirt, roots, the slow work of pulling one thing at a time.

I even went over to my mom’s house and helped in her yard too. I could feel my dad there, in the familiar weight of the work, in being outside doing something he would have loved.
What I keep thinking about is how easily we forget that not everything is meant to be finished. Some things are meant to return. There’s something good in that. Not as a burden, but as a rhythm that brings us back into our lives.

I don’t know what’s kept me out of the garden over the last couple of years. Maybe it’s grief. Maybe it’s the way it reminds me of my dad. Or maybe it’s just getting older and moving through life differently. I’m grateful for my friend and her words, and the gentle push she gave me without even knowing it.
Now talk to me in July when it’s 90 degrees.

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I used to despise weeding. Such a never ending chore. But now that my knee is so bad I can’t kneel or crouch? I actually miss it. My beds don’t look nearly as good as they used to.
😰
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I agree with you that working in the garden is grounding. Growing up in Washington state everyone had gardens and everything grew. I don’t have a graden in the desert. I never got the hang of it. But I do pull weeds that come up after a big rain in our front yard.
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What in the world? I’ve never heard of New Jersey Tea, but how COOL is that? I love that so much for you!
As much as I enjoy gardens, flowers, etc., I’m not much of a weed puller or get in the dirt sort. But I do enjoy maintaining, meaning pruning (I call it giving them a haircut) the bushes around our home. And there really is something about the repetitive tasks that is reassuring. We are here and we are living life.
I hope your last week of May is full of beauty and warmth. XO
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