The Margin

Last winter, while my parents were with us for several months, my Dad was the primary caretaker of our garden. He pruned the trees and bushes. He watered and weeded.  He did all the regular garden maintenance and some.  

The ‘some’ category encompasses all the things we don’t get around doing under the burden of ‘just keeping up’ with life. Being retired and unburdened by the distractions of the life governed by the rhythm and rules utterly foreign to him, he got to do amazing things like fixing the fence! Or, replacing the leaky garden hose. Or, re-setting the sagging gate. 

Or edging.

The last grabbed my attention today.

Back in February, somewhere between reading Anna Karenina and Brothers Karamazov, my dad went around the entire circumference of our garden and dug up a twenty-inch wide ribbon of dirt, an empty space between the lawn and the garden part. This margin made my garden look as if we pay for professional lawn and garden service! It made everything look neat, well taken care of and even peaceful.

Something prompted my dad to go around, dig deep, and with his own hand, one stab of a trowel at a time, create this boundary.  The border that says, “yes” to some things, and “no” to others.  The breathing space between ‘this’ and ‘that’.  The line of delineation where something ends and something else begins.

We all agree that having margin is of vital importance to the health and sanity of our lives. Still most of us in greater or lesser degree struggle both to create and maintain it.  

I noticed today how the empty space created by my dad is being filled with weeds and grass, even rogue seedlings of cilantro, Thai basil and our pink vinkas whose blooms seem to have gone on steroids.  The remnants of my old ‘brown thumb’ me hesitate to uproot anything that resembles a flower or desirable plant even if its crowding out what I am trying to grow during this season.  

Somewhere deep inside, I think it’s a badge of gardening honor to have more stuff growing in my backyard jungle – as if it gives me a bragging right - Look at all the things I’ve learned to grow! 

But, today I begin to realize that less indeed might more, and a wide margin with extra space may be as enjoyable and inviting (or perhaps more!) than a crowded Home and Garden Show.

Knowing my wise and perceptive dad, he was onto something. He saw what I was too busy to see for myself and decided that of all things he could have done for me, I needed his help with creating the margin the most.