Growth

My neighbor’s sweet peas: a reflection on growth.

My neighbor grows sweet peas. They peek up over the fence on lattices of string each April. My neighbor also grows carrots and other vegetables. And I envy her this. I tried growing tomatoes for the last few years and all I got were lots of tomato plants with lovely pungent green foliage, but no tomatoes. A friend told me I was watering them too much, that they needed to struggle to produce tomatoes. I thought I might try one more time this year, but as I’m unable to go to the hardware store to pick up some tomato plants or seeds and mulch, I’ll wait till next time, whenever that is.

But still, I’m inspired by my neighbor’s ability to know how much struggle is the right amount, how much water is needed, how to save seeds for next spring, all things a good gardener has learned and I have not—at least, not yet. There is hope. I may grow and learn yet.

So much has changed this last month. Has it only been a month? Perhaps. I notice other changes as I look around my yard and out my front window. My gardener hasn’t been here in two weeks. I need to make sure he and his family are okay. And my neighborhood is alive with walkers. Whole families march up and down the street, some with head phones, some not, some just talking, most with dogs, mostly moms and dads and kids of all ages. While this has been a neighborhood of walkers this last two decades, I haven’t seen this many people or families out walking before. It’s like a parade at times, spaced ten or fifteen or twenty feet apart, laughing and chasing after little kids on trikes.

My neighbor across the street now sits on her porch most afternoons with her laptop, likely working from home. Her dog perches quietly beside her sometimes. Others have taken to waving as people pass by. Simple acknowledgments saying, hello, we’re in this together, I wish you well, take care. My neighbor’s grown children, a few as old as I am, checking on her, bringing her groceries, as do my grown kids. My next door neighbor is ninety, and she still walks her dog every day. Amazon and other delivery trucks stop at most houses, delivering their wares, setting them on the front porch, six or ten feet away from whoever lives there, nodding or waving, and hurrying back to their trucks. All these people wear face coverings, including the postal carrier. Most everyone says thank you through their letter slots, hoping their gratitude is heard on the other side of the door.

This struggle is giving us room for growth. Room to reach out, though, we don’t connect. Yet. But we are reaching. So many people are reaching out, a brief, but kind email, asking how are you doing? A card in the mail with a piece of art work on it, a reminder of a movie online that I haven’t yet seen, a book I might want to read again, a song that’s new, posted online from someone’s living room. We’re all trying new things.

I’m hoping all this growth lasts beyond spring. I’m hoping we’re become real neighbors again. I’m hoping that amid all the loss and grief that there is some good, too. It seems like it that this morning. It seems like more than sweet peas are peeking up and over the fences we thought we needed. Maybe this struggle will help us grow more fully human.