It's 83 degrees in the middle of September, and I got to spend a power hour in the garden in the middle of the afternoon. (This is very, very good, because I'm on what I call garden probation; my 100 square foot community garden plot is monitored for appearance standards and the insufferable presence of weeds in its pathways - both of which have been less than desirable on the past couple of garden monitor visits. If my plot isn't picture-perfect prepared for winter, it will be taken from me. Yep, probation.) That power hour in the autumn sun planting purple brussels sprouts (whose winter produce promises leaves of deep purple or sea green with violet red tips and veins) and pulling out kale trees gave me rather pink cheeks. When I caught my reflection in the mirror, all I could think about was how lucky I am to have the weekday privilege of an occasional hour in the garden.
I've tried really hard (embarrassingly hard, since I've mostly failed) to gain a 9-5 type job that would make this kind of power hour quite impossible. Let me confirm that I absolutely love my job, but since it lacks the financial growth opportunity I need for long-term stability and security, over the past year and half I've spent hours and hours applying for jobs, responding to interview assignments and going to interviews. And failing to get the jobs. It's quite humbling. I'm never before encountered such overarching failure. Most of my adult work life has been born of the good fortune of excellent timing or spunk of creativity and resourcefulness, or both. Now I get to do good work for families and their young children, not because I knew anything about it when I started but because I let myself learn from the work along the way. So in a way, that was made possible by failing here and there along the way. But never on the scale of outright inability to advance like my intentional job search has been.
Now, I might be kidding myself to think I could stand a work-life that required me to learn a system and a standard that I didn't get to help create. I need the pink-cheek element of accomplishment and action I get in my garden just as equally in my work. That rosy flush of work well done or gone all wrong is a workplace privilege I'm proud to say I have in spades.
In my garden I grow plants for food and medicine. I also fail there. I don't get every zucchini at the right size, snails get some strawberries, my blueberries have failed to thrive, I let the nasturtiums take over my beet bed this year. Without my garden and it's edible gifts I'd be sorely missing many of the most joyful interludes of my life, including harvests and fruitful labor. Without a flexible work afternoon I'd be missing some of the prime pink cheek hours I'm fortunate to have. On days like today, I feel good about letting go of what I don't have to let in the enrichment of what I do.
So that's the power. Pink cheeks. I'm not failing myself in these moments, I'm living the dream with my pink-cheek power, every garden hour.
