Where is the line / What lies on the other side

The raised bed / Autumn season / Rooted with hope

Where is the line? 

Putting the garden to bed for the winter season means making choices. Some are easy. Toss the colourful annuals that have not even slim hope of surviving a Zone 3 winter. Pull out the tomato plants that have done their job, given us jars and jars of beautifully red fruit for our winter enjoyment and put the vegetative waste into bags and bins for compost. Good riddance, in the best sense.

But other plants prove more challenging.

Two of them, they bloom still. Osteospermums — one white, one yellow. Still perky, colourful, alive. How can I toss them? I know that, ultimately, they must go. But not yet. Not yet. That line is not yet here. Frost has not yet crept into our nights; it will come and when it does, the line will be obvious. No guessing, no wondering required. The blooms will droop and it will be easy to toss the plants, clean the pots, store them away til spring.

Frost is the line.

But, several years ago, when my mother was suffering serious pain, it was challenging to know when to call the ambulance. How long to suffer, to wonder about the source, to try this and that, to not be precipitous, to be reasoned and logical and calm? For us, it was five days. From Sunday to Thursday. Then Mum decided it was time, enough. She called the ambulance, and that weekend, she had surgery and the problem was solved. But before then, we hadn’t known where the line was between her suffering and the solution.

Often, that is how it is.

The line is not obvious. No frost to droop the blooms. No binary YES or NO. No black here, white there. Only the possibility of this or that or, even, of the other.

So, we, mere mortals, must make the call, draw the line, decide to step across into the choice on the other side.

Today’s political headlines tell of lines mere mortal leaders are, for their own various reasons, deciding to cross. Where it leaves the world is open for debate. Not unlike those two osteospermums still lingering in their pots, my thoughts these days are held in place, wondering what the coming days will bring in the Middle East and around the world. The line across which peace might live has been crossed, but the road towards the new horizon is cluttered with countless more lines. Yet to be named, drawn, crossed.

Let us hope for much wisdom and loads of love along the way. There is no easy frost to mark the difficult moments of choice that lie ahead.

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My background understanding comes, in part, from listening to an episode of “Rear Vision”, an Australian radio show that provides insight on world events through hindsight. Saturday’s episode (played on CBC Radio’s overnight schedule) dealt with the 1998 Good Friday Agreement: “As all eyes look to the Middle East this week, hoping the seemingly intractable conflict between Israel and Hamas can be resolved, Rear Vision looks back to Northern Ireland. In 1998 The Good Friday Agreement was signed by groups in Britain and Ireland, bringing an end to 30 years of violence, murder and religious conflict. How did this come about? And are there lessons we can learn?” Fascinating and important. Listen here.

Gardening note: The two plants that I have put directly into the soil of the raised bed (photo above) are oregano (the little one) and Cuphea Bruyère 'Allyson' (purple flowers). I am experimenting to see if they will survive the Manitoba winter. Hope springs eternal. Indeed. 

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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.