I thrive when I'm doing.  Writing. Gardening. Working. I enjoy actively participating in the busy routine and daily rhythm of living. But when something knocks me to the sidelines as a mere observer, I squawk like a crow.  Merely watching my garden behind a window makes me cranky.

I imagine few gardeners out there — if they had a choice — would pick the “undoing” that injury and illness, disability and aging visit upon us, whether temporary or permanent. Until now I actually believed the propaganda that the more active we are, the great flexibility and mobility we have and “would always have” to do the things we love. I mean, isn't that why . . .  gardeners don't mind muddy shoes and dirty fingernails that accompany preparing a bed for seedlings. 

. . .  gardeners don't mind how many times we uproot a pouting plant in the search for an ideal spot. 

. . .  gardeners don't mind the ongoing never ending re-envisioning and reconstructing of vegetable plots and flower pots, front lawns and backyards.

After all, you have to do something to harvest anything. You can't just be present. Unless you want to be stuck with the same bedding plants in the same place year after year, you ‘gotta do something different.  A garden is not a set-in-stone completed project anyway. A real garden is always evolving — a work in progress.  

But today — well, today I'm what's stuck. Sidelined. I didn't choose last year's injury or surgery, or last month's finger fracture or the other uninvited distracting dramas that play out in my life.  I am “making do” though with this messy complicated time for just being.  Mentally yanking my boots out of what has “undone” me and compromised my enjoyment of gardening. Hunting and pecking keys with one hand to type this blog. Pausing to open the blinds to see the glow and feel the warmth of sunlight against the glass instead of merely observing the passing rainstorm and my garden from behind a window pane.

And the Aha moment is there. Outside resting on the stone bench beneath the window ledge is a stem of rose leaves blown loose in the storm — glistening as if it were a crystal broach. I grab my camera to capture simple beauty seldom noticed because I'm too hyper-focused on doing.