Weeds and hard things…
The neighbor's tree had basically taken over the driveway. Long twisty branches hanging down haphazardly, requiring trimming with loopers before we could even make it to the garage. When we returned after 10+ weeks at my parents' place, our house and the surrounding yard seemed to have gone feral. The garden was overgrown; the windchime had lost most of its chimes, the back door no longer shut properly. It was a disaster. It was magical. It was home.
We were back with a month left of summer. A month left before school began. We had few plans, except, I suppose, getting ourselves and the house in order.
I've always welcomed the changing seasons. The way it bookends time. A way to wrap things up and start something new. Especially autumn. It's anticipation full of school books, freshly sharpened pencils, endless possibilities. But this time felt different. The end of innocence with uncertainty around every bend. Up until this point, we've kept our pandemic bubble impossibly small. But that was all about to change. The start of pre-school meant opening up—just like the house, we'd need to become less feral.
After making the garage accessible, we started on the perimeter of the house. Pulling out the weeds that seemed to threaten to bury down in the stone foundation, something a mason had warned about when giving an estimate for patching the stone on the old house. We did it in 15, 20, 40-minute intervals, however long I could hold the toddler's attention in between work calls and sneaking in writing.
"It's so hard, too hard," my 2-year-old said more than once when she got frustrated with either pulling out patches of mint or not being able to reach quite high enough to put the clumps into the compost.
"It's OK, you can do hard things," I started replying. "Try, I'll help you."
How many impossibly hard things have our kids done these past few years? How many more will we ask them to do? As grateful as I'm for the ability to send my child to a nature pre-school. It feels about safe as I could dream of—they spend 90% of their time outside, all the staff and teachers are vaccinated, and my daughter is pretty good at wearing her mask. And, it's simply a magical experience. Still, I'm so angry that these are factors I have to consider. That this is her pre-school experience. That we're still living like this. Years from now, I worry her nightmares will be full of masks, hand sanitizer and reminders to wash her hands.
But forced to choose, I'd pick this as her hard time. We can't ask them to solve the climate crisis. That is too hard a thing for our kids to solve. And it will be too late if we wait until they're capable of it.
"For children and young people, climate change is the single greatest threat to our futures. We are the ones who will have to clean up the mess you adults have made, and we are the ones who are more likely to suffer now. Children are more vulnerable than adults to the dangerous weather events, diseases and other harms caused by climate change," youth climate activists Greta Thunberg, Adriana Calderón, Farzana Faruk Jhumu and Eric Njuguna wrote in a New York Times op-ed earlier this year.
We're past the point of being able to stop the climate crisis with incremental change. According to UNICEF's Children's Climate Risk Index (CCRI), which shows how many children are currently exposed to climate and environmental hazards, shocks and stresses, more than half of the world's children live in high-risk countries. The United States is presently considered a medium-high risk country. We need drastic change. We still have a chance. A chance to do the hard things right now so that our kids' future won't be impossibly hard.
After a month of gardening, my daughter got the hang of it or at least the hang of learning where the raspberry bush is and when the berries were just the right shade of red to be delicious. Want to garden? I asked my daughter after her first day of pre-school in mid-September. Yes, wanna garden, she excitedly replied. There’s something therapeutic about pulling weeds. It's quickly become a part of our routine a few minutes here or there, even an entire Saturday with Nana. We conquered the weeds, moved on to digging up grass for fall planting. She no longer thinks it hard. And that's the thing, isn't it that most hard things get easier with time, practice and perseverance.
I believe that we can do what's hard now. That we can still mitigate the worst of climate change. That we have to try. What hard thing will you try this month?
~ Bridget
Published
Why Isn't There More Organic Alcohol?, for Wine Enthusiast
The Rise of At-Home Hydroponic Gardens, for Modern Farmer
How to Learn More About the History of Your Home, for The New York Times.
Reading
Everything and anything on fall gardening, starting with Why You Should Do Your Spring Gardening in the Fall.
Working
On a story on the benefits of children's gardens for Good Housekeeping.
Getting into a pre-school/work routine. What are your tips?