A gardener’s story about growing a writing community

I didn’t know what I was doing or where I was going when I started to dig in the ground of my new front yard. I just knew that I didn’t want all that grass or that huge tree or the boring junipers around the house foundation. I was younger then, full of energy, so I just started.

Deborah and I didn’t know what we were doing or where we would end up when we started to talk about our lives as women and as writers needing to embrace the changes that life had either thrust upon us or that we were calling into our lives. We just knew that our conversations were necessary and revealing and, ultimately, healing. We were not so young then, yet full of curiosity, so we just started.

It was hard work ridding the front yard of what was probably decades of grass, but with the help of a good friend and the encouragement of my partner, it slowly disappeared into wheelbarrows and then down the riverbank at the end of my street. A little while into this method, I learned that the riverbank was private property and, while the owner was kind to me, it soon ceased being a dumping ground for what I called unwanted yard material. It’s not always easy to get rid of stuff we no longer want or need, is it. But I persevered, clearing way to make room for my evolving vision in my new front yard.

It was pure fun talking and writing and being creative with Deborah and one day we said to each other that we should DO SOMETHING with what we were discovering, so we fleshed out our ideas into a 4-part course we called “Writing as Tool for Transformation” and we proposed to our local independent bookseller McNally Robinson that we offer it in their community classroom. For many weeks we heard nothing back and we thought, Oh well. At least we tried. But then we did hear back from the new program manager and she was enthusiastic and we were delighted and we picked a date later that year to begin: Sunday, October 20th, 2019. Five years ago this very week. 

My new front yard took shape in sections from the curb up towards the house. I cleared, laid rocks down as borders, and set native plants into the soil in one area and shade-loving perennials into the new main bed — I didn’t know enough back then to know that I should amend the soil to give the new plantings a fighting chance at more than just survival. I just kept going and, over the months and years, my vision took shape and the yard became a place of good growth and lovely seasonal blooms. And I wanted more, and every year I kept going and every spring I got more pleasure from my growing garden beds.

With that first date set and published in McNally’s calendar, Deborah and I felt excited and also pragmatic: If no one registered that would be fine as we had already achieved great things simply by taking our idea from nothing to something. Then, one day in late August, Deborah texted me: HAVE YOU SEEN MCNALLY’S EMAIL? I hadn’t, but quickly found it on my phone and saw that our course was SOLD OUT!! Holy cow, from nothing to more than something. Wow. A full classroom in which we first met Cathy and Leslie and Kay and Florianne and 12 others with whom we had a truly remarkable experience, learning just how true our course name was: Writing as Tool for Transformation.

My front yard must be more than 15 years old by now; I have not kept good records of my work, but I know with certainty what I have learned: My own personal energy got me going. My own limits saw me bring in professional gardeners for help and refurbishments as I realized I needed them. My sense of pleasure and satisfaction with and in my front yard garden continues to grow with each season. I simply love it — spring time growth through summer abundance into fall wind-down and then winter surface dormancy. The roots continue taking hold in the soil, giving life to blooms as the growing season, once again, comes into its own.

That first ‘writing as tool’ course evolved into three and then into others as our writing community took root and grew and bloomed and the writer-members asked for more and different learning contexts with us. I have binders and notebooks and folders full of the records of this growth, for I have learned the value of documenting an evolving vision. I am astonished by and grateful for the community that has grown up around the offerings that Deborah and I continue to co-create with all these writers. They are the water to our seeds. 

Today, five years after that first course offering, we love where we are at with these writers, this community, and we celebrate the blooms that are each piece of writing shared in this growing community of WRITERS. 

By any title in any genre, writing is, indeed, a tool for transformation.

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Land acknowledgement: I respectfully recognize that I live on the original lands of Anishinaabe, Cree, Oji-Cree, Dakota and Dene peoples, and on the homeland of the Métis Nation.