The Garden

If relationship = gardens Then one person is the gardener and the other is flower that is being tended to.

"You've been a fool, and so have I
But come and by my wife.
And let us try, before we die,
To make some sense of life."

That Sounds like a great plan. I like it actually.

With one exception.

I don't believe that one person has exclusive rights as the Gardener and other as the flower.

I think in a relationship, the roles tend to switch depending on need.

"We're neither pure, nor wise, nor good;
We'll do the best we know.
We'll build our house and chop our wood
And make our garden grow,
And make our garden grow"

In my "whatever we are calling it now", I have been the Gardner for the past 3 months. I have weeded, I have nourished. I thought I was doing all the right things.

"I thought the world was sugar cake,
For so our master said.
But now I'll teach my hands to bake
Our loaf of daily bread."

But my Garden didn't grow. It started to wither and fail. And I blame myself in part for why that happened. I did the best that I could.

"We're neither pure, nor wise, nor good;
We'll do the best we know.
We'll build our house and chop our wood
And make our garden grow,
And make our garden grow..."

In all the time that I have known him, it wasn't until recently that I even ALLOWED myself to see a future with him. I worked with those goals in mind. I wasn't picky on the timeline either. I was even thinking about children. We both have so much to offer a child in terms of parenting and values and talents - can you imagine the musician that child would be? and dancing? I mean, we are talking a musical theater GENIUS. That would be our kid. And brilliant. and socially conscious. Politically unique ( him not me ). And the love of two parents and the multitudes of family that we both have.

"Let dreamers dream what worlds they please,
Those Edens can't be found.
The sweetest flowers, the fairest trees
Are grown in solid ground."

But unfortunately, fear is a powerful motivator. These things look wonderful on paper. They feel right in person. But if the garden is afraid to bloom for the Gardener, there is limited success to be had. The Gardner would have to be patient, coax the garden out slowly and patiently. Nurturing it, allowing for failures, enabling new ideas and allowing the garden the freedom to grow at its own pace.

But at some point. The Gardner has to decide when it's time to stop trying. Maybe the land isn't ready to be sown yet. Maybe the land needs rest until it is ready to take crops.

Maybe the land is not ready to grow the kinds of seeds that the Gardner is trying to plant. the seeds of love may not be the right thing for the land at this time. Maybe they will never be. Or maybe they need time and patience.

I guess what I am saying is that, I will keep doing the best that I know. I will keep trying to grow the garden until I have tried everything in my, albeit limited outside the metaphor, knowledge to get my garden to bear fruit. The fruit of love or friendship, or both.

A wise friend of mine, once said something brilliant to me about this very situation. She said that people who have this kind of connection and this kind of friendship and closeness with each other - they get married. They move in together. They love each other and they commit to one another.

"We're neither pure, nor wise, nor good;
We'll do the best we know.
We'll build our house and chop our wood
And make our garden grow,
And make our garden grow. "

And those people, the ones described in my friends' wisdom?

They make their garden grow.


Lyrics to "Make our Garden Grow" from Candide written by Leonard Bernstein