A few years ago my business travel increased significantly. I didn’t understand its implications until this prolonged pandemic, which has robbed me of the physical travel and interaction in person with colleagues and clients that spark my creativity. Working remotely is familiar and easy but I’ve never done it exclusively. My energy is flattened, my mood on occasion dour; I feel stifled. Do I thrive on change of scenery for motivation?
After our parents died, my sister, brother and I searched for new common ground as “family” as our parents were most often the intersection of our relationships. We landed on short travel experiences as the vehicle, mini-quests on a theme to new places – food in Charleston, arts and culture in Asheville, Bonnie Raitt live at the old Ryman Theater in Nashville.
Two years ago we went “local” to my brother’s cottage in Westport, a quiet village on the South Coast of Massachusetts. He was a chef then, so enticing aromas were always in the air – roasted coffee, pungent garlic, sweet basil from the kitchen garden. As a Womantraveler whose life was mostly on airplanes and meeting rooms, my plan for this get-together was to get very good at doing nothing.
Yet my brother and sister were unusually animated. From the outset, they began riffing together on gardening – the earthy leaf lettuces exploding in his porch baskets, the smoking compost pile warming from veggie scraps and plant cuttings, the flowering Rose of Sharon, wild thistle and Black-eyed Susan whose bee pollinators were making honey.
I sat and listened, unable to engage in their journey. Their conversations took me back to my preschool years gardening with my Dad. I say “my” Dad because, as the oldest, he was all mine then. On summer mornings in our backyard plot of corn, beans, tomatoes, radishes and abundant flowers, he would draw verbal pictures of his recent World War II memories. I was entranced by his daring flights “over the Hump” in the Himalayas, piloting the General to Chengdu, China, meeting my Mom at a Red Cross dance near Delhi. I learned the difference between cumulus and cirrus clouds as we meditated on the sky, how to tell the wind’s direction, and why any of this mattered. I hated getting my fingers dirty in the soil, and especially weeding, but I loved those flights to distant places with him from the solid ground of the garden floor.
My brother and sister were drawn closer by tiny cuttings they visualized as children to be tended, nurtured and grown. Suddenly I was the odd sibling out. Then, as I reflected on the scene before me, I discovered that the three of us actually shared common ground in the garden. For my brother and sister, it is terra firma for connecting with each other. For me, it is a springboard out – fertile soil for travel, for adventure, for the unexplored worlds beyond. Our father’s passion for the garden was present as the seed our continuing relationships, however they would grow in coming years.
“When you go on a quest, is there room for serendipity?” Travel writer Tim Cahill answered the question at a travel conference this way: Absolutely, he replied, experiencing serendipity actually may be the heart of the travel writer’s craft. I agree – travel is a framing device for my life’s journey, the ordinariness of everyday makes way for imagination and planning the next leap into the unknown.
I have planted my own garden during COVID-19. My thrills from gardening may be muted in comparison to my brother’s and sister’s, but in that moment two years ago I began preparing subconsciously for this time. Then I saw it as “doing nothing” – stopping, observing and “centering” in the garden. Now I honor gardening as “groundedness” – stopping to be present in the moment at a slower pace so that the fertile soil can seed growth – of plants, of ideas, of me.
I’ve made my peace with gardening, and proudly share photos and videos of hummingbirds, tarragon and gardenia blooms. It’s a fine alternative to Zoom. Truth be told, though, once again I am out of balance and my bags are packed for the next trip away.
