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If you’ve been visiting me on Facebook lately you’ll have been subjected to privy to some lovely happy snaps of my author garden. I am currently surrounded by, inundated by, overwhelmed by beauty.
Roses, irises, murraya, jasmine, hibiscus, honeysuckle, viburnum (left) and other beautiful flowering what-nots, the names of which I’m still learning.
Tiny birds flit in and out of the flowers, drinking nectar and twittering excitedly to each other.
When I inhale, the scent is intoxicating, especially in the evening when the heavier night air clings to fragrance, holding it close and concentrated.
As a writer, I love my garden. Not because I sit out there and write in the sunshine. I could, but I tend to get distracted and I don’t like the way the sun shines on a computer screen.
Rather, I use the garden as a place for focusing thought. I have spoken before of my productive relationship with weeding (it’s a good thing that I have found such a positive spin on this particular activity, as I tend to do a lot of it…) and watering (ditto).
I am not a person who can empty my mind and sit and meditate, but concentrating on digging up onion weed is active meditation for me – and useful as well.
I think, as a writer, it’s easy to get tied up in the intellectual and the tyranny of the blinking cursor. It’s easy to forget that some of the most important work of writing is undertaken while you’re doing other things. That ruminating and composting of thoughts, ideas, notions, images, and memories that goes on in the back of the mind.
I often find that if I spend some time in the garden, I come back to my study and the words ease out on to the page. By giving myself permission to think, I buy myself a ticket to a few more pages.
With NaNoWriMo coming up in November, I can see quite a few hours in the garden ahead of me.
Are you a gardener?
Hi Allison, I’m new to your blog today, having discovered you through the Australian Writers Centre. I loved this post and agree wholeheartedly that sometimes the best inspiration comes away from the bright screens and demanding cursors.
We have a plot on my husband’s family’s farm, where we grow fruit, veg and flowers. I never could have predicted the scale of the impact being on the farm and getting my hands dirty would have on me personally, and on my writing.
By the sounds of it, your garden must be full and absolutely lovely.