The Sixth Sense

 It’s been an emotional month for me. The kids have had their share of problems at school, and my family has been plagued with health issues. There’s also been the possibility of a job change and a potential move, which makes everything feel unsettled.

Whenever I plant a seed in my garden, I wonder if I will get to watch it bear fruit or if we will move. Honestly, I don’t know.

Happily, I’ve been reminded that I have a superpower to help me navigate uncertainty, burnout, and relationship conflict. You have it too.

It’s our emotions.

For generations, we’ve been taught to ignore and repress our emotions. Another school of thought suggests that giving in to your emotions by wild outbursts of expression is ‘healthy.’ I want to challenge you to think about your emotions differently. They are not bad or good. They are not to be repressed, nor do we have to surrender our will to emotional impulses. Instead, emotions are simply a source of information about our environment and our relationship to that environment. 

I think of my feelings as a sixth sense, a way of gathering information that is often overlooked and undervalued. Ignoring my emotions is kind of like putting a piece of electrical tape over the ‘check engine light’ in my car and continuing to drive.

When I feel a strong emotional response to something, it’s essential to take the car to the shop and take a peek under the hood. I do this by first doing a body scan. Are my physical needs being met? Am I getting enough sleep, balanced nutrition, exercise? Have I done anything recently to throw my hormones off balance (medications, supplements)? What about withdrawal/ dependency symptoms (caffeine, alcohol)?

Next, I make a list. I write down absolutely every unfinished task weighing on my mind. Once my mind is free from the burden of trying to recall a lengthy list of ‘ought to-dos', I place it aside. I might schedule a time to look at this list later by making a note on the calendar. When the time is right, I will organize my tasks according to importance, delegate what I can, and trash what really doesn’t matter. But now is not the time. I put the list out of sight and release it from my mind.

Now, I move outward. Sometimes, I know where the source of my strong emotional response lies, but sometimes it takes a little digging. Journaling helps with this process. I often find a difference between what I think I ‘should’ feel about a situation and what I actually feel.

Anger lets me know a personal boundary has been violated. Unease can expose the fact that a situation feels unsafe. It goes on… but honesty is critical. I swear and break the pencil lead on the paper. I have placed myself in a quiet, safe space. I can write how I really feel.

Once the problem is exposed, I brainstorm a way forward. What needs to change? What boundary needs to be expressed? I move forward in the direction of peace, lightness, and release. I chose to act, not in a manner controlled by my emotions but in a way that honours them. I will state what is needed with empathy, compassion, and a clear, firm understanding of my boundaries.

I am not a therapist, but I am a human. I think and feel, and like all of us, I get banged up on this walk of life. This is a process that I have developed over several years of practice with Cognitive Behaviour Therapy. Accessing the information passed to me through my emotions gives me a deeper understanding of myself and the world I live in. It allows me to live in a way that feels more balanced, peaceful, and productive.

A note about productivity. I often fight the need to decipher my emotions because I usually measure my value by how much I produce. I don’t want to stop and reflect. I want to check that next to-do off the list. A time of reflection feels like being lazy.

But the truth is the opposite. If I really want to get through that list of things I'd like to do… and do them well, I MUST stop and ‘check the engine.’ I can spend three days pushing my miserable self beyond the point of burnout to do the same amount of work a happy, well-adjusted me can accomplish in an afternoon.. ;) Time really is relative! 

Not that productivity should be the way we measure worth, but especially as someone who creates regular online content, this measure of worth is something I struggle with. So understanding that self-care actually INCREASES my productivity motivates me to take the time to keep the engine oiled. Listening to the information given to me via my emotions makes me a better lover, parent, creative etc. 

And hopefully… someday soon, I will internalize the truth that we are all inherently worthy of love and care. To exist is to be worthy of love. I am loved; I am worthy of care. I deserve health, security and peace of mind... simply because I am.

And so do you.

A look inside a hospital during COVID: Lower Mainland Region, BC Canada

I'd heard on the news that things were getting bad in the hospitals. A third spike in COVID cases has hit us hard here in the lower mainland. I believed it, but now I get to see it.

I'm writing this while biding my time in a Lower Mainland emergency waiting room for a non-critical, non-life-threatening condition. I inhaled some harsh chemicals by accident and slightly damaged my airway. I've got a dry hack and no voice. Poison control told me to come in once the coughing refused to settle.

I probably need a prescription for an inhaler or something.

I've been here for 7 hours so far. And I blame no one. The elderly lady with the head wound has waited longer. One young guy is pretty sure he passed all his kidney stones while waiting and is ready to go home now. 

Suspected COVID patients sit over to my right. They are supposed to be behind a screen, but there are too many. The hospital is beyond capacity. It's been crowded for hours. Only parents of sick kids can stay; other supportive relatives have to leave. Nurses are run off their feet. 

Something brown and slick oozed out of a patient's shoe and across the floor. The trail followed him as he left the emergency room, his ankles swollen and inflamed. The fluid has been dragged around by shoes and wheelchairs. 

The single patient washroom here has been wiped down once in the last six hours. I jumped on the chance and was the first one in after the clean.

I hack and cough while returning to my seat, and I get dirty looks from an older man hugging his catheter bag. I want to explain that I'm not contagious, but I can't talk.

I can't imagine how hard it would be to work here. And I know there are problems with funding and staffing that extend beyond the current pandemic. I'm just saying that the influx of patients is stressing a system that already needed help.

I'm also not writing this to judge or complain, but rather to write down a witness statement and add my own small touch of humanity to the numbers here in the lower mainland of BC:

Over 1000 new cases a day.

Stay home, stay safe, stay kind.

And love on our health care workers. No matter how short-tempered they may sound! ;) They are saving lives.

Thank you to all the staff working their butts off around here! And to the cleaning staff who I see running about constantly cleaning equipment and chairs. I’m sure they’ll get to that brown puddle as soon as they can. 😨😶

With love,

Charity

How to make wine from backyard grapes

My Backyard Garden Grape Wine Recipe and Method

I've got this old garden grapevine in my backyard. It's massive, and it comes with a family of cute raccoons every summer. I usually harvest AT least 100lbs of green grapes each year. So what's a girl to do but make wine? It took me a bit to figure out my technique, so I'd thought I'd record what I've learned and share it with you! Just in case... you know... you also have way too many grapes in your backyard. :)

Ingredients

• 20 L of grape juice (100lbs of crushed and destemmed grapes) 
• 1 packet of wine yeast (this is what you need to start a yeast colony for up to 5 gallons of wine, even if you are making less!) 
• Yeast nutrient (1 tsp./ gallon) 
• Sugar 
• Campden tablets (10) 

Equipment 

• Five+ gallon bucket 
• Carboy 
• Airlock 
• Big long spoon 
• Hydrometer
• Siphon hose 
• 24 wine bottles bottles 
• Corks 
• Corker 
• Sanitizing solution (I use Aseptox)
• Mask

•  *A friendly relationship with a local brewing store. I'd like to send hugs to Von Euw Brew for equipment and advice. All my equipment images do have Amazon links, but honestly, you'll save money and build great relationships if you shop local!

Method

Sanitize 

Fill a tub up with your sanitizing solution and immerse all equipment needed. Rinse well with hot water. Do this before each step. 

Prepare Fruit/Sterilize Must 

Destem and crush grapes to release juice. Fill your 5-gallon bucket. It's OK to leave the skins in the juice if you've got the room. This juice/skin mixture is called must. 

Put on a dust mask.

Crush up 5 Campden tablets and mix into juice. Wear your mask because the powder and the gas that is released during this process is a respiratory irritant (it can chemically burn the back of your throat). However, the Campden tablets kill off wild yeasts and bacteria, making the fermentation process safer for an amateur like me. 

Mix. 

Allow the must to rest for 24 hours. Cover your bucket with a loose lid or a clean towel to prevent flies from getting in but allowing carbon dioxide to escape. 

Adjust Sugar Levels

(to determine the alcohol level of your finished wine)

Check the sugar levels of your must with a hydrometer. The amount of sugar in your must will translate to how much alcohol there is in your finished wine. Drop the hydrometer into your must. The hydrometer will show you how much sugar is in the juice mixture by the way it floats. The higher it bobs, the more sugar there is in the must. This unit of measurement is called Specific Gravity (SG). 

The sugar in your wine is digested by the yeast and converted to alcohol through the wine-making process. Your wine is finished when the hydrometer sinks deep into the wine and measures a low SG level of 0.99

To increase the Specific Gravity of your grape must, I just read that 1.5 cups of sugar added to 5 gallons increases the Specific Gravity .005 units. Honestly, I just make a generous batch of sugar water and added it slowly, mixing the sugar in and measuring the must with my hydrometer as I go. Be sure to completely dissolve your sugar in warm water before adding it to the must. 

To lower the Specific Gravity, add water. 

***Too much sugar can be a problem. You should look for a reading between 1.07 and 1.09 units of Specific Gravity. This will give you a wine between 10 and 13 percent alcohol. If you add too much sugar, the yeast will stop fermenting before the wine is finished. 

Add Yeast Nutrient

Once you're happy with the amount of sugar in your grape must add some yeast nutrient by stirring it directly into the must until completely dissolved. Yeast nutrients are a mix of yummy minerals and vitamins to feed and boost your yeast colony. Add 1 teaspoon per gallon. 

Yeast Nutrient can also be added later to wine for stuck fermentation if your growing colony stops fermenting.

Add Yeast

Sprinkle 1 packet of yeast over the surface of the must. Don't stir. 

Primary Fermentation 

Cover the bucket with a loose lid or towel. Now sit back and watch your new yeast colony grow across the top of the wine. After about 12 hours, you'll see a heavy, frothy cap form over the juice. 

Stir (punch down) this cap into the must whenever the cap forms (every 12 to 24 hours). 

You also need to keep your fermenting grape must in a place where the temperature is around 21 degrees Celsius. 

 After 5 days, take a reading with your hydrometer. Primary fermentation is complete when your hydrometer reads about 1.03 Specific Gravity. 

 Even if fermentation isn't done, don't leave the wine to sit any longer than 7 days. Otherwise, your new wine may start to develop some "off" flavours from the decaying grape skins/fruit sediment. 

Siphon Wine into a Carboy 

Now it's time to transfer your new wine from the bucket and into a carboy. A carboy is shaped like a giant wine bottle and is made from glass or plastic. Sterilize everything the wine will touch. This process of siphoning wine from one container to another is called "racking off." 

How to siphon 😉 

Take the vessel containing the wine with the sediment, open it up, and then place it up on a raised surface. The process involves gravity, so the full container of wine must be higher than the tallest portion of the clean bucket/carboy/bottle you're going to use to catch the wine. 

Insert the siphon hose into your wine bucket, making sure to not touch the sediment lying on the bottom. You should be able to clearly see the line of sediment by the time you're ready to rack the wine. 

Start sucking on the other end of the tube as if you're drinking from a straw until the wine begins to flow. Then move the tube into your sanitized carboy/bottle/bucket as quickly as possible. Try not to let the wine splash around too much. You want to try to minimize the amount of oxygen that mixes with your wine. 

Keep a close eye on the sediment, making sure you don't stir it up. Once your container becomes full, or sediment begins to flow, clamp the hose to halt the wine's flow. 

Toss the grape skins and sediment from primary fermentation in your compost.

*Bonus step: Sample your homemade brew of Federweisser

Your wine is at this point sweet, frizzy and contains about 9% alcohol. Federweisser is a special treat because, due to the amount of C02 still being produced, it's impossible to bottle. 

But be careful! I've heard this drink referred to as "Witch's Brew," and for a good reason! Federweisser is sweet and fun, and the lightness makes it easy to drink, but be sure to sip it slowly and moderately. Otherwise, the carbon dioxide/high alcohol content sets even a high-tolerance drinker up for a murder hangover. It can also be a little rough on the stomach. 

You've been warned! 

Seal off your wine with an airlock.

An airlock has a valve that stops oxygen from getting into the wine but allows carbon dioxide to escape. Watching the small C02 bubbles form and burst in the airlock can also give you a clue about whether your wine is still fermenting or not. 

Secondary Fermentation 

Let your wine ferment dry 0.99 and 0.98 on your Specific Gravity Scale. This step takes a couple weeks. 

It's essential to keep an eye on the temperature of the room. If the wine gets too cold, the yeast will stop fermenting the sugar. If the room is too hot, you may pick up some strange flavours. 

Sweeten to taste (if you want!)

This step is called back-sweetening.

Rack (siphon) your wine back into your big bucket and add potassium sorbate (1/2 tsp. per gallon). Potassium Sorbate stops the yeast from multiplying again once you add sugar back into the wine. 

Make a simple syrup by boiling 1 cup of water with 2 cups of sugar and cool. Set some wine aside to taste test what percentage of syrup you want to add to the wine (ex. 1-4%). 

Be conservative when adding sugar to the batch. Wine sweetness builds up after several glasses. 

Add your desired amount of sugar into the wine and mix well. 

Sterilize Wine

Crush up 5 more Campden tablets and mix them into your wine. Don't forget to wear a mask! This will preserve and sterilize your finished product. 

Settle for clarification 

Rack your wine back into a sterilized carboy and pop the airlock back on. Now leave the wine alone for at least ten more days to allow the last wine sediment/dead yeast cells to fall to the bottom. 

Once you're happy with the clarity of your wine, get ready to bottle! 

Bottle

Make sure you have about 24 sterilized wine bottles, 30 new corks, and a sturdy corker. 

I recommend calling around and renting a wine floor corker from a brewing supply store. These corkers make the process fast and easy. They are also heavy-duty enough that you don't need to mess around with soaking the corks or anything. Just pop the corks in the top compressor and pull the handle.

Siphon your wine into bottles to the base of the wine bottle neck. 

Cork 

Slap on silly labels. 

Voila! Homemade wine!

Comments: Wine techniques and recipes vary a lot. No, it's not organic. No, it's not wild yeast. No, it's not a premium variety. 😂 I put this method down because it's what I wish I had when I began: a simple method to build from. 

It is, however, your responsibility to determine the value and safety of the preparation instructions. I do not assume any liability for adverse reactions to food consumed. Recipes taken from this blog and prepared are done so “at your own risk.” You should seek advice before beginning if you are unsure of the recipe or your skills.

With love,

Charity

Howling at the Moon (crazy sleep cycles)

 I'm writing this blog at 11:46 pm. And it's all Farley Mowatt's fault.

One of my favourite books as a child was "Never Cry Wolf" by Farley Mowatt. It's the story of a naturalist living among a pack of Arctic wolves. It's a haunting and beautifully written semi-autobiographical novel. If you've never read it, please do!

And it had an unusual and lasting effect on my young brain.

Did it give me a lifelong passion for wolves? Not really.

Photo by Thomas Bonometti on Unsplash

Did it inspire me to become a naturalist? Sort of. I often advocate for environmental issues through writing.

Did it teach me that I can use urine to mark my campsite boundaries in the backcountry? Maybe.😝 (I have never tried, but it seemed like a trick that might be useful one day.) 

What this book did do was inspire me to try and sleep like a wolf.

In the book, the author describes himself adopting the sleeping patterns of the wolves he is studying by sleeping in short naps around the clock. I think I was struggling with insomnia at the time, and somehow, to my young brain, this sleeping pattern made perfect sense.

And thus started sleeping patterns that I still can't shake. I stay up late, wake up early and nap a lot. Wherever and whenever. My naps can be ten minutes, they can be two hours. Regardless of the circumstance, this pattern has remained consistent since highschool.

I've slept on golf courses, beaches, park benches, private meadows, and in the tub. In the car, on couches, and on hard plastic chairs. I sleep on coffee breaks, lunch breaks, study periods and in the Costco parking lot before a big shop.

Basically, I sleep like a wolf: awake and asleep for short periods of time around the clock. I've tried to change this many times, but as my husband pointed out, I still get eight hours of sleep! And get everything done, so why fight it? Maybe it's mental, maybe it's a sleeping disorder, maybe it's biology. Personally, I blame Farley.

Photo by Aron Visuals on Unsplash

🐺

The Experiment

 We'd just moved onto a ten-acre plot of land, only a farmer's wheat field and a forest trail away from the country school of Waterloo Elementary. I remember a dusty back road, sunshine, and tall spruce trees. My grade-three teacher, Mr. Baker, looked like Santa Clause. He called me 'love' and read the Hobbit out loud to our class every day. 

To me, that small school of one hundred kids felt enormous. Over the last four years, homeschooling had left me with an inflated sense of self and no understanding of social norms and taboos. Some of this was good (I was willing to make friends with anyone). Some things were hard. As a homeschool kid, I believed my parents knew everything about fashion and being cool. So I let my mom dress me in a white turtle-neck and bright pink corduroy overalls with big white buttons for my first day. That was a mistake.

I learned fast, though. I figured out who the cool kids were. I dressed like them and worked hard to insert myself into their social circles. I wore baggy sweatshirts and ripped jeans. I side-parted my long hair from one ear to the other. Being at the right place, at the right time, with the right people, saying the right things meant everything to me.

Fricken grade three. After about six months, I felt like I had done it. I was popular. It was exhausting. I spent more brainpower maintaining my social status than learning my multiplication tables (and it shows to this day, pop quiz me 12X7, and I'll panic a little inside).   

And then came the Experiment: the Day that Changed Everything.

A skinny young man with leather writing patches on his blazers' elbows came to visit the class. He explained that he was doing an experiment around the way people communicate with one another. 

We all received folding cardboard blinders to prop up on our desks and a handful of colourful wooden blocks. The man explained that he would build something with blocks behind the blinder he'd set up for himself at the front of the room.

Then the young man pulled out a floppy $100 bill from his wallet and waved it through the air. The room became pin-drop silent. 

"If you can build your blocks exactly the way that I build mine, simply by listening to my instructions, I will give you this $100 bill right now," he said.

We grabbed our blocks and buried their heads into our makeshift cubicles.

"Put the green triangle on the orange square. Put the purple triangle next to the orange square, put the blue triangle on top."

The room vibrated with focus, each kid laying their blocks with the precision of an "Operation" game player. After setting a few blocks down, I leaned back a little to stretch my neck. I accidentally caught a glimpse of another kid's blocks, and a shock ran through me.

I glanced towards another desk and what I saw confirmed my suspicion: both kids on either side of me had arranged their blocks differently from mine. I'd been placing my pieces in parallel to one another while the other kids had stacked their blocks horizontally into pointy towers. I'd been doing it totally wrong.

In a flash of panic, I destroyed my design before anyone else could see. I rebuilt the blocks to match the towers of my friends. How could I have been thinking so wrong?

To this day, this story still hurts to think about, much less write. The young man at the front finished describing his pattern, and we all dropped our blinders. 

Everyone in the class had built neatly stacked piles of blocks. However, the young man's blocks were arranged flat and parallel to each other, precisely how I'd set mine up a moment before.

The young man blew out his cheeks and laughed. He waved his $100 bill once more in the air before tucking it back into his wallet.

"You know," he said, "I've done this experiment at dozens of schools, and no one has ever replicated one of my patterns, but I still get nervous every time."

And I knew, with terrible, finite certainty, that no one would ever believe that I had matched his pattern but then destroyed my work moments before the reveal... all because I was afraid of being different.

It was a bitter pill to swallow, but the lesson behind this moment imprinted upon my young brain and encoded itself into my DNA.

That I must never EVER be the same as anyone else, ever again.

Which, of course, is a philosophy that has led to all sorts of misadventures (stories for another time). But it sure makes life interesting.

And I don't even care whether you believe me or not.

😆

Dryuary: Drying out and levelling up

 

Sometime halfway through November, I realized I was drinking more than I wanted to. Savouring an occasional glass of wine had turned into drinking nearly an entire bottle to feel the same sort of heady buzz. My alcohol tolerance had gone way up, and my standards for the type of wine I was willing to consume had gone way down. I could also see that my need for wine to relax at night and the hangovers I had in the morning were encroaching on the quality of time I could give to my family.

I tried cutting back on my own, but a few slip-ups left me frustrated and regretful. I journaled, I struggled; finally, I reached out. I found accountability vital to weaning me off alcohol, but it's also the most challenging part. There is such a stigma around admitting that you are regularly consuming more alcohol than you should. It's a shameful and taboo subject.

I find this attitude a little strange. I mean, a large majority of us drink regularly in some form or another, so it follows that many of us also find ourselves somewhere on the slippery slope of addiction to alcohol. The biggest revelation that I've had in the last month is that the saying "alcohol and drugs" is wrong. Alcohol is a drug. Full stop.

Now, I know this blog is supposed to be about creativity, but for me, the practice of living a creative life includes mental and physical wholeness. My love for good wine was out of balance; to live a full and creative life, I need to regain control.

Many of my thoughts around this subject are inspired by the book "The Naked Mind" by Anne Grace. Like me, if you want to, at least, moderate your drinking, I highly recommend her work. I find it especially effective as an audiobook.

Nicotine is a drug; caffeine is a drug. Our bodies naturally build tolerances to these substances, and we need to consume more to have the same desired effect. We also develop dependencies on these drugs, making it hard and painful to stop using them even when the drug no longer gives us the buzz we initially felt, even though we now consume our drug of choice simply to feel normal. 

Alcohol is a drug. There's no clear line between "them"(alcoholics) and us. We're all consuming the same substance, and we're all on the same path. If you drink regularly, it's pretty much inevitable that you will someday develop a dependence on the drug called alcohol and encounter its harmful side effects. As so many of us drink, I'm writing this blog post because I'm sure many of you have felt the same as I have;

That just maybe, you're drinking too much.

I didn't like what I was doing back in December. The irony is, the wine really flows around the holiday season. In an effort to cut back, I gifted my neighbour with a bottle I'd purchased to drink on Christmas, only to discover a bottle in the gift bag she'd given me in return. But I had some help. I'd connected with a friend who also wanted to take a break from drinking, and the accountability stopped me from pouring a glass with dinner. Instead, I indulged in hot chocolate with foamy cream, mini marshmallows and a dash of cinnamon.

It took me about ten days before I felt the physical cravings for alcohol subside. It was absolutely a battle, and honestly, I threw my calorie diet out the window and used sugar as a substitute to help manage my cravings. It was the holidays and boy, did I eat a lot of chocolate and candy!

Once the physical cravings subsided, the mental ones continued. My mental wish for alcohol forced me to examine what made me want to consume in the first place. We often say that we use alcohol to relax, but now I asked why. Relax from what? And how can I make that stressful situation better rather than reaching for a drug to numb my feelings about it?

For me, this involved a sit-down talk with my two little precious girls. I told them, nicely, that when mom is trying to sear a pot-roast, it is a very bad time to start spin dancing next to the stove and bickering about who gets to build a googly-eyed monster with the last fuzzy pink pipe-cleaner.

Among other things. :)

So yeah, establishing clear boundaries in my life has helped me lessen the number of triggering stressors that gave me the mental urge to reach for a glass of wine.

I remember the first time since choosing to abstain that I felt mentally overwhelmed, and I wanted a glass of wine. I was about to grab the bottle when I thought, 'this is a good time to see what happens without it.' I won't lie, that night was a hard one, but it also forced me to do the work to address the problem I was trying to run from. Wine doesn't solve problems; it just stops you from dealing with them. In the morning, your situation is still there, and you've got a hangover.

So instead of drinking, I choose to deal. :)

And remember that bottle of wine from my neighbour? I still have it. I actually like the fact that I have alcohol available. It means that I could drink wine, but I choose not to.

Another reason that I was drinking was because of physical pain. Typing over a keyboard, crafting, and painting all give me great joy, but they also all put incredible strain on my neck. As a reward for abstaining from wine, I am using that money towards a monthly massage instead. :) 

If you are interested in drying out for the short or long term, January is an excellent time to start. Many communities now recognize this first month of the year as 'Dryuary,' giving you a built-in support system towards regaining control. Just google it. :) It's a unique and affirmative movement, and I'm so excited to be participating this year.

However, please consider your level of physical addiction. Going completely cold-turkey on your own may not be safe for you if you have a high level of dependance. That's when your doctor may need to become involved. Be safe, be honest, and know you are not even close to being alone in your struggle!

To be honest, I'm not ready to give up alcohol altogether. I want to be drinking for the right reasons, and I want to be in control of alcohol, not the other way around. Ideally, I'd like to return to the occasional glass of wine on special occasions. Realistically, I know this may not be possible. Physical addiction to a drug changes the structure of our brains. I may find that I now permanently struggle to moderate my intake. It's something to watch out for!

In the meantime, I'm currently in the market for some delicious gourmet hot chocolate. Any ideas?

 

Alchemy Rose

A few years ago, I investigated the long-stemmed roses in front of our new rental house. I'd never been much of a gardener, and I believed that if the plant didn't produce food, it wasn't worth my effort. There were six bushes. Aphids and powdery mildew covered the buds and leaves, yet the stems looked strong. 

It was a dark time in my life; I'd been experiencing debilitating depression and anxiety-driven blackouts. I needed something to distract my mind from the pain and fear I felt. I found a rusty pair of shears and scoured them clean with steel wool. 

I decided I couldn't make things much worse. 

I had no idea how to care for roses. I began by cutting away the diseased and mildew-covered parts. I washed buds with water, knocking and shaking all the aphids to the ground. I cleaned my shears and did it again the next day, and then the next.

My beautiful roses exploded. I harvested the blooms and filled our house: roses in the kitchen, roses in the entranceway, a bouquet on the dining room table, vases in the bedroom. I carefully cut the blooms, clearing the way for new baby buds and coaxing the bushes to grow in attractive shapes. 

The roses didn't need any special knowledge to bloom. Their roots were deep, and the oldest stems were wooded and robust. They just needed someone to care. I visited my plants daily, checking the leaves, trying to understand.

When I couldn't get out of bed for me, I would get out for my roses. I needed to check on them. The summer came with forest fires, toxic air, and the most severe water restrictions I've ever experienced. I saved dishwater and fed the roses by hand. Even through the wilting heat, the blooms continued.

And then a week or so went by where I had no time to prune. Rose blooms bobbed on stems up to six feet tall, wild and gangly, waving in front of the windows like cheeky toddlers. My human children needed me and the days slid by without giving me a chance to work in the garden.

Finally, I made it out one early morning. I walked down the little path that spans the width of our house, and a vice gripped my heart. Where there had been roses, wild, brazen, and thorny, laden with heavy crimson crowns, there were now only stumps.

Clusters of torn leaves and woody stems, hacked to about a foot off the ground were all that remained.

Shock blacked the edges of my vision, and then came a wave of horror. Next, I felt stomach-turning guilt. This was my fault; the roses had grown too wild. My landlord must have seen the untended roses; he must have wanted things to look neater. Maybe he thought he was helping. A sense of rage and helplessness washed through me. He was in the right; it WAS his yard... but I'd loved them. 

I wept that day. I ran into the guest room, locked the door and closed the curtains. I knew they were just flowers, but we'd grown together. I'd healed them, and they'd coaxed me out into the sun. 

I sobbed harder than I'd cried in recent memory. The hacking of those stems shattered my heart. And yet--strangely--the experience felt good. Whenever my tears slowed, I would dredge up another painful thought and cry some more. Soon I wept not just for the roses but also for myself. I cried until there was nothing left to cry for; until there was nothing left but the raw truth I'd known all along:

That the stems were strong, the roots were deep, and the blooms would come again in spring.

And they did.