Today, upon coming home, I threw over all the things that needed doing for one hour in the garden. My patient, long-suffering garden. She has been calling me for weeks. Luring me with the promise of cool, damp dirt between my fingers.

Things are growing, wild and untended. They want me not to tame them, to reign them in, but to tend them, to care for them in their wildness. To allow the leaves and branches to wind into my hair as I lovingly prune back old growth and clear space so that they may grow with even greater fecundity.

And so I did.

In one small corner of my garden, I cleared space and placed the leaves and dead branches in the compost so they might soon feed new growth.

And then it rained.
A slow, steady, soaking rain.

And watching from the window, I longed to return and lie among the flowers, in that freshly cleared space. To let the water wash over me, nourishing the roots I longed to send out like runners, creeping along the surface of that cool, damp soil.