breathe & grow

There's a back-story behind this blog. There's always been "A garden" in our family life - we had a postage stamp sized "French Intensive" on Burling St in Chicago in the early 80's. We expanded to Bette of Good's suburban plot in the City of Destiny back in the mid 80's. We really bit off the big wad and moved to the boonies of Jo Daviess County in the late 80's and really went crazy with this garden thing.

This need for us to dig and plant is a metaphor for our life in a way.
Gardens begin in a burst of hopeful enthusiasm. Fallow ground begs notice and responds wildly to any attention. When the efforts of that intimate interaction yield the first shoots of green, budding or flowering in abandon- it's green adrenaline for a melancholy winter heart. The flurried frenzy of summer growth is intoxicating - an explosion of DNA that feeds everything with its promise. The gardener's reward is the unstinting horde the plants provide us in their fruits and blooms. Nature's generosity is the great gift, gratitude for life's mystery the only option.

We eat and breathe what we grow - it becomes us. It's simple. Remember that.