The Sidebar: 12 Seeds to Start Now, 20 Questions for Lent, 2 Garden Plans and 1 Butterflied Roast Chicken
Why do I always want more?
In Need of Forehead-Smacking
I always want more – more chocolate, more flowers, more visits with my Dad, more hours lying in bed reading, more garden space.
And as someone who always wanted more to drink – and has a history of taking on too much – these days I’m always checking my motives (as my sponsor used to urge me to do) and touching base with the people who know me best to make sure I’m not being overly self-indulgent or letting my “I wants” take over.
Where does the wanting come from? In part – to be fair to me, to be fair to you – I think we are responsible for creating a beautiful life for ourselves. No one else is going to suggest that you grow eight varieties of pansies or make Butterflied Roasted Chicken with Meyer Lemons and Fennel (again) this Sunday – just because. (Yes, there’s a recipe for that a bit further down.) No one else can say, “I need to schedule another trip to visit Dad, just because I want to see him.” (Even though you saw him only two months ago and it’s an 11-hour trip door-to-door to reach him.)
At the same time, there’s a lot of restlessness behind the constant desire for more. In rereading parts of Gerard May’s Addiction and Grace last week (for my post on sobriety books), I was kind of shocked to hear May lump restlessness into the fear-of-death department. I’ve always thought my inability to sit still was just a general neurosis. I don’t think of myself as particularly afraid of death – but then again it’s not like any of us sits around thinking about how our bizarre (and often controlling) behaviors are linked to this most human of emotions.
We might not think this way, but the poets do.
Last Wednesday, Ash Wednesday, I opened up an email post from David Anderson, a friend from years ago who is a pastor and a beautiful writer (author most recently of Losing Your Faith, Finding Your Soul) with the first of a series of posts he’s doing called Twenty Questions For Lent.
This first question was “What More Did I Think I Wanted?” — which happens to be a line from a Sabbath poem by Wendell Berry. To my delight, David let Berry walk us through that kind of moment when we block out the chaos and come to a place of peace (in this case, deep in the woods on a day when the mists are rising from the ground and a single yellow leaf is falling from above) and realize
What more did I think I wanted?
Here is what has always been.
Here is what will always be.
As David says, “with this flash of insight…when for a brilliant instant we see what’s real and true, what lasts forever, we all wonder—smacking our foreheads—What more did I think I wanted?”
I foresee much forehead-smacking in my future. I don’t know about you, but I often experience moments like Berry describes when I’m outside, either walking in the woods or working in the garden. But the peace is temporary. When I return to the land of the living, I feel restless again. My mind darts around looking for the next thing to do. It wants something more, and I’m not sure why, though I suspect it is all about distraction. Something for me to think about as I look forward to the rest of David’s Twenty Questions For Lent.
Progress, not perfection
Sadly I have much proof that my obsession with “more” is thriving. I bought no less than 50 varieties of seeds (including 10 cosmos, 14 zinnia, and 8 sweet pea) in hopes of growing every one of them in my (small) fenced garden this summer.
The big garden down in the field is only a sketch in my mind right now, so while that will ultimately be 3,500 square feet of fenced growing space (more or less – plus the hoop house), my existing fenced garden is more like 350 square feet. Inside this little garden (below), vegetables and dozens of dahlias must grow, in addition to the cutting flowers.
How will all this fit? It won’t, of course.
