Hands to the Earth, Hands to the Sky

A few weeks ago I cleared my garden for the last time. Over the course of an hour or two, I toiled over net-like ground cover, firmly rooted dandelions, and innocuous-looking weeds with vicious, tiny thorns. Over the summer the garden had become another child of mine as I nurtured its new life. My three kids—two bipeds, one quadruped—delighted in taunting its branches and leaves with curious hands, kicked-up heels, and lifted legs. Despite human, canine, and botanical competition, my garden-child flourished, bringing me bouquets of Swiss chard, bundles of sugary cherry tomatoes, and bushels of hot and sweet banana peppers that hung in perfect position like ornaments on the Christmas tree. And I relished each time I left its confines with hands stained by soil and chlorophyll.

It was my first garden ever, a dream decades in the making come to life. Not long after the first rain fell to nourish the seedlings, the cycle of life bore its burden in full. As life began to bloom in our garden bed, death fell upon our home. A family of five became four. An annual trip to the ocean passed us by in favor of scheduled visits and makeshift family nights shrouded in the uncertainty of what the future holds. The sky cried for us all summer. And with a slight chill on our hearts, we watched our garden grow.

Although gardening was new to me, my hands had known the rush of connecting with earth before. When I was 23 and a second-time-around college student, I chose ceramics to fulfill one of my core requirements. That was many moons ago, but I can easily recall how the firm, gray clay gave way to a creamy texture as I sprinkled it with water and shaped it into a small cone between both hands. With pressure from the bottom of my right fist on its apex and support from my left palm against its side, I compressed the cone into a short, fat cylinder. The anticipation would well up inside me as I pushed my right thumb into its top to make a shallow well and then began pulling the clay from its center with both thumbs on the inside and fingers on the outside, thinning it out, lifting it up and up. As my potter's wheel turned round and round, the clay would lightly stroke my fingertips, forming faint lines all the way up its length, and I would exhale with pleasure as I watched it stretch tall and stand strong.

There wasn't a moment I didn't enjoy my time in the studio, so much so that I signed up for another semester and then a class at a local studio after I graduated. The ritual of throwing down a ball of clay, wetting it, shaping it, and lifting it upward to become a creation of one's own, it's what love is made of. That famous scene in the movie Ghost isn't so far fetched. The feel of wet clay is very sensual—and perhaps sexual, although my feeling is those are two messes best kept separate. All these years later, products of my affair with clay are part of my everyday life: I eat from a cereal bowl I made, store utensils in a bulbous urn, keep change in a short, fat pot. And still other pieces remain in high-up places safe from reckless little hands, so I can remember for years to come the joy of that moment in time.

In late July I celebrated my birthday dinner with two girlfriends I've known since college. Over tapas and talk of separation, my girlfriends extolled the many virtues of yoga. I had only done it once prior, when I was 16 at the local YWCA with my best friend. All I remember is spending a lot of time doing nothing, and that maybe Ginny fell asleep at the end. In the same year I tried yoga for the time, I became a runner, and from then on I assumed sitting too still for too long on a mat wasn't for me. But on my 41st birthday, between bites of indulgent combinations of sugar and butter, amidst sideways glances at college girls blissfully unaware that firm butts don't last forever, my girlfriends assured me yoga wouldn't put me to sleep.

A few weeks later, I began a new journey with a yogi named Adriene on YouTube, albeit in the discomfort of my own home with a two-year-old clumsily petting my downward dog. I quickly found respect for a practice I had too easily dismissed, for how it emboldens me to find release in this body balled up with worry. In practicing yoga I've learned to allow myself to think of nothing at all, for maybe the first time ever. In forward fold, I become soft and supple like the clay between my fingers so many years ago. With my palms as support, I lift my self, softly and slowly, up and up, until I can stretch no more. When Adriene says reach for the sky, I do in earnest.

When life shifts shape, it's asking us to respond. What will you do? Last summer, in my garden and in my yoga practice, I felt removed from unresolved situations, unpaid bills, unanswered emails, unrepentant worries—even if momentarily. When you find a moment to savor, it saves you from yourself. And what is contentment if not a collection of moments? Put your hands into the earth. Reach for the sky.