The Art of Patience in Gardening

A few days ago, I took a walk to one of my favorite local spots.

There's a pond with amber-colored water when the sun hits it, and usually lots of waterfowl around. My favorites are the ducks and herons.

I brought a picnic basket, filled with snacks and a book I didn't end up reading on my adventure. It was a beautiful day.

Sunny, a few puffy clouds, and just enough wind to knock my hat off but not enough to fly a kite in.

To my excitement, there was barely anyone around and I got dibs on the picnic bench I wanted to sit at. I walked through the lush woods and settled with a great view of the pond and bridge.

Admiring all of the beauty around me, I reminisced on how when I was living across the country, the place I wanted to be most was here.

Since moving out to Oregon, my life has changed a lot. From my personal life and mental health to greater-scale things like political and economic changes nationwide. I felt so much surer of myself back in August when I took the leap of faith 2,500+ miles away, but since then things couldn't be more different than how I pictured. I'm not here to dwell on the horrors or things that haven't worked out. I'm writing this to acknowledge how transformative the past several months have been.

If you would have told me back in 2016 that I would be single, living across the country from nearly everyone and everything I've ever known, struggling to find a job post-pandemic during wartime WHILE our government is sabotaging us at every turn- I'd be horrified. It sounds like a horror movie, doesn't it? It is. But changing perspective helps, so let me rephrase that to include the positives:

If you would have told me back in 2016 that I would be learning more independence, living in a beautiful city that I love filled with flowers, dedicating a lot of my time towards volunteering to a Ukrainian nonprofit that I'm passionate about, while also pursuing art and writing AND taking care of a home, garden, and found family that I love so much- I'd be delighted.

Uncertainty is terrifying, rejection and failure is hard to go through. There are a lot of serious things happening right now which aren't okay, but I think it's important to have balance recognizing injustice and wanting to do better in ourselves and for the collective while also enjoying what we have and finding beauty in the world around us.

One of my favorite quotes by Audrey Hepburn is: "To plant a garden is to believe in tomorrow." I've painted this on a rock that I put in my garden before anything started to bloom at all. I've planted probably tens of thousands of seeds and I had no clue if any were going to grow at all. For the first few weeks I stared at the dirt patches around my house in horror that nothing was happening. "Did I waste all that money? Did I fail?" Sure enough, with enough patience and the seasons changing, bright green seedlings began to appear! Then plants! And finally, my wildflowers have begun to bloom, inviting pollinators and biodiversity to my yard that seemed so dead and neglected when I moved in.

My goal was to make habitat. My goal was to support local flora and fauna while also beautifying my new home. So far, I've achieved that, and we are still early in the growing season! When I look at my lacey phacelia growing on my front walk harboring ladybugs and bees, or spotting California bluebells in front of the house, it's hard to even remember the incredible amount of manual labor I did with the help of my friend clearing weeds, vines, and invasive plants. I got splinters, bruises, cuts- pulled muscles and the garden still looked gray and dead and cold. But I believed in tomorrow, and now I get to enjoy seeing new things every single day.

Things aren't easy, and there's a lot outside of my control, but I think it's finally started to hit me that I have started to make a life for myself out west. It's hard to see progress when you're staring at the dirt every day waiting for something to sprout but stepping back and looking at what's grown over time is quite the spectacle. All we can do is keep trying while holding on to the confidence that there's a possibility that with hard work, things will fall into place.

~Anastasia S. Razumova