The Garden of Giving Up

The grayscale of a photocopied sheet
A magazine clipping here
A comic strip there
An inspirational quote
printed in large serif letters
resting on the pillow
of my childhood bedroom
Your fervent paternal need to share wisdom,
to deliver the message
in whatever way you could.
You raised me to believe
that I was capable of anything
“Never, ever, ever give up”
you always said
I, on the other hand,
have come to understand that
I can’t have everything
that in order to make space
for what’s truly important to me
I must give up, let go.

My product manager brain,
trained to separate
the must-haves from the nice-to-haves,
from the out-of-scopes
Prioritizing saying no a crucial piece
to making anything happen at all
There are times when
throwing in the towel,
when moving on is the right move.

Still, I hear your persistent,
“Never, ever, ever give up”
echoing in my psyche
Your eternal optimism
welling up inside me
even while rolling my eyes
in teenage annoyance.
I think I figured out
why that phrase bothers me so
It’s the implication
that “giving up” is a form of surrender
telling yourself you’ve lost the battle
before it is over
Well, I’m done with war metaphors
And if I am capable of anything,
it is a healthy reframe.

I’ve started gardening recently
here in this Land of Sunshine and Rain
I’ve found that, sometimes,
letting go means making space
for something new to grow
There was a strawberry plant
I tried desperately to save
not understanding why
it refused to take hold
This morning, I noticed it out of its pot
laying shriveled on the ground
My first thought: “But I can save it!”
My second: “But why?
Why force this particular plant to live
when it is so clearly meant to die?”
So, instead of re-potting it
per my initial instinct,
I planted a cucumber in its place
placing the desiccated berry leaves
in with the soil
that they may turn to fertilizer
and nourish the cuke’s roots.
I buried blind optimism,
exchanged it for the hope of new beginnings
I will not pretend that the strawberry is alive
I choose to accept reality on reality’s terms
rather than live in the fantasy
that the strawberry survived.

Instead of “Never, ever, ever give up”
I choose to believe:
“Sometimes you’ve got to allow
to wither and disintegrate
that the nutritious molecules
be sublimated into something new.”

Sometimes, it is in giving up
on what is believed to be true
that allows an opening of room
for the truth standing right in front of you.
What might we grow,
right here, right now, in this world
with the soil and the climate and the tools
that we’ve got?
Quite a lot, I’m convinced.

I’ll be over here in the backyard
ripping out the weeds
pruning what no longer serves
If you are down to get your hands dirty
If you are OK with getting rained on
If you are willing
to tear down the rotting tree
You are welcome to join me.