Looking at the plants in my garden makes me realize that …Even though I know their names, in Latin and in English, I don’t really know them. Even though I planted them, they do not belong to me. They belong to the earth. They belong to some mystery my eyes cannot see, my words cannot name. They are not mine.
I am not mine.
I belong to a mystery that holds me, feeds me, and breathes me.
I wrote those words in my book Unfolding, more than a decade ago while looking at my garden. My plants inspired these words. I didn’t know yet how many other things I’d learn to say that about.
Don and I are downsizing. After thirty-three years in this house, half our sixty-two years of marriage, we’re moving to a condo. In the sorting and packing, the same question keeps surfacing
What do I actually own?
This home has been ours for so long that letting go of it feels like a kind of abandonment. But I was never really the owner. I was a longtime visitor. My granddaughters grew up knowing only this house. We celebrated holidays here, filled these rooms with laughter, and made countless family memories. For twenty years, this house has also held women’s circles and seasonal celebrations. All these gatherings leave a house changed. They left us changed too.
This house held all of that.
It held Don.
It held me.
This week, we’re donating my paint table to the Alive Center in Naperville, where it will find a home among teenagers exploring their creativity. Don built that table for exactly that purpose. During years of teaching process painting, granddaughters’ visits, afternoons painting alone it stood ready to support our creative spirit. It has been a magical partner. Now the Alive Center will be filled with delight and surprise as painters dip into its rainbow of colors.
I did shed a tear at the thought of letting it go.
But here’s what I noticed in my sadness. When we let go of things, we form a more precious relationship to them. Holding them loosely is what makes our love for them visible. I didn’t love that table any less for giving it away. I loved it more, right in the moment of planning its release.
As I cut flowers, to bring them in for a summer bouquet, my mind pictures other hands that will someday gather their own bouquet from here. Gratitude fills me for all the joy my garden has offered for over three decades.
My garden has changed and matured.
Well, so have I.
Hydrangeas have walked me through many seasons, green in spring, bright white by summer, fading to beige in autumn, brown through the winter months. And there are also others who have kept me company on this long visit. The roses. The magnolia. The redbuds. They have nurtured and cared for me, season after season.
I do not own them.
I never did.
Maybe that’s the real work of this move. We are not just sorting and packing, but unlearning the idea that anything was ever truly ours to keep. Not just the house, the table, the garden, but also my own body, my own days.
All of it is mine to love while I’m here.