Dear World: I Think I Am Gardening

Sometimes, “figuring out your next chapter” looks a lot like “buying sharp scissors and cutting things with them.”

I’m Ash, and I’m a writer, traveler, nonconformist & nomad, and every week I’m sharing funny field notes from around the world. Currently, I’m in America writing about what it’s been like to return home to my small town, twenty years after living abroad.

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Sometimes, “figuring out your next chapter” looks a lot like “buying sharp scissors and cutting things with them.”

Which is all to say: oh no, I think I’m gardening.

Recently I bought some sharp scissors that have been cleverly rebranded as “pruners,” and took them to these capricious red hybrid tea roses I bought, and I “deadheaded” a bunch of them, which is a term I casually picked up on the internet, because who knows if I am really doing this right (??????). The lady at the garden center told me I needed to find the next stem with five leaves on it—FIVE, NOT FOUR, NOT THREE, NOT SIX—and then cut there.

Pruning is an awful word. But, I rather like my new alter-ego as a Person Who Gardens. Feels really mature. Who wants to have a rosé brunch surrounded by good-looking people in London when you can sit at home on your porch in sweats and have no dignity at all?

Today, I am going to plant the “window boxes.” They are white. They match the house—sort of. I spent my life savings and bought 4,400 of them (seriously, they’re expensive?!), then lugged them all into the garage, and then let them sit there for three months, as is tradition. A few weeks ago, when I finally got up the gumption to attempt installation—something I thought was going to be akin to installing a small airplane onto the roof—it turns out that drilling these bitches into my 1886 wood siding was a dream. I have eaten donuts that were more complicated than that. Which is all to say: don’t give up! You, too, can be a pretend gardener.

Last week, the power went out. I am used to this: the power goes out all the time in foreign countries. And in all of my glorious twenty years I spent coming of age abroad becoming incredibly OCD about bugs, there is one very valuable thing I learned: when the power goes out, you only get one flush.

So when the power went out here at the farmhouse, me, being the experienced scholar I am, decided that it would be wiser, almost like cheating, were I to go down to the cottage to use its bathroom…thereby “saving” the other two toilets in the big house for “emergency nighttime use.” Well, I’ll never do that again. Fast forward twenty minutes and there’s me, in the dark, holding an iPhone flashlight in one hand, and a plunger in the other, trying like hell to unclog a toilet from 1993, before it overflowed, onto my brand-new L.L. Bean boots, as I splashed bacteria-infested water, onto the floor.

I blame the electricians. They were here for a whole week. I had these poor fuckers swapping out every light fixture on both properties, from exterior lanterns to porch lights to ceiling fans to flush mounts. Then I had them change out something like 50 outlets. (They loved that.) Then, I had them replace all of my breaker boxes to something approximating “this century.” Then, I had them install all-new electric service, upgrading my amps to 200—which is absolutely an old house flex. Now I am invincible, somebody give me a commercial-grade blow dryer.

This one poor guy, however, got stuck doing the worst job of all: he had to install the ceiling fans. I don’t know if you’ve ever installed a ceiling fan where there was no existing fixture, but if anyone ever asks you to do it, tell them to walk into the ocean. I had no idea this was going to be such an awful, awful task, but apparently when you have pride in your work, and apparently when your boss is going to hand you a new one if you don’t, you don’t just cut open the ceiling like a homicidal pighead (like I would have done): you go through the attic. You get your ass up onto a ladder, and you hold your breath, and you climb fearlessly through a 2’x'2’ crawl space, and you dart your eyes around looking for squirrels, and then you rub your hands all over mouse poop, and then you you SOMEHOW DON’T FAINT IN 90-DEGREE HEAT WHILE CUTTING A FRIGGIN’ CIRCLE IN THE CEILING FOR SOME ASSWIPE WHO WANTS A FAN.

But now, my toilet’s clogged. Haha, jokes on me.

And, it’s still clogged, but not for lack of trying.

Lemme tell you: I have had some INTERESTING EXPERIENCES in that bathroom since this happened. I tried plunging it, but pro tip: do not do this when the bowl is full, especially if it is the color brown. I also tried the Green Gobbler, which I thought was excellent branding, but after leaving it to soak overnight, the problem wasn’t gobbled. So of course, I dumped another bag of Green Gobbler in, and now I’m supposed to go down there and look, but we both know it’s not going to be fixed, which means I’m going to have to call a plumber, and every bone in my body will be mortified, and I will want to tell them it was the electricians, but who’s going to believe anyone who says that???

Especially someone who doesn’t know how to prune a rose.

I thought I’d be bored of this by now. I really thought I would. The nature, the country, the silence, the lack of a sophisticated culinary scene. But, as it turns out, I am thriving—and in ways I’ve never imagined. Perhaps that’s the best thing about figuring out your next chapter: you peel back layers of yourself until you get to your core.

Yesterday I jotted down in my notebook: ONLY WHAT I WANT FOR THE REST OF THE YEAR.

As soon as I wrote it, it felt free. It almost seems like something you’re not allowed to do. Every decision is always made by first filtering it through the needs of someone else. Would this work for them? Would they be upset if I did that? What if they’re lonely without me? Does this seem selfish?

Removing that filter immediately puts your own priorities into focus.

It’s a WHOLE DIFFERENT LIST.

Things you hadn’t admitted to wanting, all the sudden show up. Things that, if left to your own devices, you might choose for yourself. It makes you wonder: if this is the real you, here on this page, who have you been all this time?

I often find myself acting as a caricature of myself in order to become more agreeable to whomever is in my company. It’s one thing to do that for fifteen minutes at a party. But, what if we end up doing it for years?

Buy sharp scissors and cut things with them.

I am finding clarity in the mundane. Cutting off the heads of roses is, somehow, stupidly therapeutic. So is weed wacking, which I seem to do a lot of around here, and hedge trimming, which is the bane of my country life’s existence. Yesterday I spent two hours trimming the fucking hedges. These things sprout out shoots like the hairs on my chin. And, I can’t reach ‘em all! So I’m out there in my green hardware store muck boots (because snakes), and I’m pushing my boobs up into these hedges (ticks?!), and I’m on my tippy toes up on a slanted rock on the side of a slope, and I’m convinced I’m going to fall and cut my arm off.

Now that’s a whole new level of “buy sharp scissors and cut things with them.” I don’t think I meant THAT.

But, just like a rose, sometimes your life needs pruning.

They say that when you prune roses, the flowers grow back 10x bigger, you know. Fuller, bigger blooms, everywhere. It gives the healthier parts of the plant space to grow. All the unhealthy parts aren’t hogging up its resources anymore. In what feels like a sneaky contradiction, making the plant smaller now means it will be much bigger later.

Buy sharp scissors and cut things with them.

Making your life smaller now might mean that, too: that as a result, your life can become much fuller because of it.

Here, I don’t have wine bars. There is no high-street shopping. There is no fashion. There is no gloss. No accolades. No impressive titles. It is all the basics.

And yet, I am happy. Stripping it all back to the basics really does help you see more clearly. The other distractions aren’t hogging up your mental resources anymore.

Right now, I can think. I can plunge toilets. I can pretend to garden.

And I can prune. And I can prune. And I can use my scissors like a sword.

And soon, I’ll be left with only one thing:

Myself.