Replanting
a Garden After Years of Neglect
On rediscovering
creativity after years of neglect and how some seeds survive beneath the weeds
Twenty
years ago I’ve put a part of myself in cold storage. I tried to revive it some
years afterwards, but the experiment failed. And so, a part of my soul remained in stasis. Like in those sci-fi movies when you see bits of people
floating in big plastic tubes filled with green liquid. That's how it felt. My
alter ego. The creative piece of soul. The writer. The dreamer. The gardener –
planter of ideas and reaper of harvest.
In a sense,
I was dead. My soul was dead. Until, one day, when suddenly and out of nowhere
I decided to defrost myself. To give myself another chance…And I did it. It was
a slow process, thawing a part of myself that was frozen for so long…It felt
like walking through a barren, deserted place that once was a beautiful and
lush garden. Now? Only weeds and some feeble plants here and there…a small
sunflower and some withered wild flowers.
How does
one replant a derelict garden after years of neglect? What could survive after
such a catastrophe?
A few
ideas, some words here and there, a forgotten manuscript in a box under the
bed.
During all
this time while I left myself to wane, to rot, things have changed in the outside
world. People I knew disappeared, communities just shriveled and went away. Meanwhile,
new ideas, new fellowships formed. And truly? It feels more like a jungle than like
a deserted garden. Paths I once knew and followed simply disappeared. New
plants have appeared and old trees have died…
The work of
replanting a forsaken garden will not be easy. But if I begin with a few seeds
and seedlings, if I will tend and care for them, I hope a new garden will
appear. Maybe different, definitely smaller because I don’t have that much time
anymore, but definitely a place where things will grow.
And do you
remember that butterfly with a broken wing that I found near Emmaus and brought
home? It will be there, too.
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