The great re-wilding

From midlife reckonings to front yard meadows

I have to begin this post with a huge THANK YOU. I was terrified when I published last week’s column sharing my call for submissions for Redacted. What if I caught a ton of hate over it? Or worse, what if I got crickets? There’s nothing worse for a highly sensitive ENFJ Double Cancer than throwing a party where nobody shows up. 😉 So, thank you for showing up to my party with enthusiasm and support.

I was humbled and thrilled and grateful and awe-filled to see all the shares, the comments, the likes, and most importantly—welcome to several hundred new subscribers this week! I am over the moon that you are here, really. I can’t tell you how much it’s meant to have your support.

For anyone who missed it, last week I introduced my newest project, Redacted: What Divorced Women Aren’t Telling You, and a call for submissions for anonymous stories from divorced women. You can read the full submission guidelines here, and I’ll share more details at the end of this post.

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Spring fever, perimenopause style (like, extra feverish)

Because I am insane, as I was preparing to launch Redacted into the world, I am currently preparing to launch my memoir proposal into the literary agent querying cosmos. Both prospects are exhilarating and exhausting, and I’m feeling a bit wound up over it all. I’m longing for one of those days when you flop in a sunchair and exhale so loudly you scare the birds. This week, I started to daydream about clearing the end of this stretch—call for submissions launched, proposal sent, LTYM Boulder show season over, school out—and sinking into spring, then summer, with maybe the teensiest bit more space for myself, space to breathe.

And as I anticipate crossing a few more accomplishments off the master to-do list, I can almost picture it. Me, in my hammock chair, listening to the birds (I’m a birder now, you guys, so what? Download Merlin and tell me you’re not obsessed.) My fairy lights twinkling in the twilight sky. My poppies blooming in the front yard. My mind, quiet. My muscles unclench and my thoughts stop spinning and I imagine my hands in the dirt, welcoming spring. not just surviving, but actually thriving.

Something has changed since last spring. The first summer of the divorce was a blur of bewilderment, and I let my garden to go seed and the lawn go to shit and the flowers die because I was in survival mode. My daughters and I were the only ones on my “must-save” list, and everything else simply perished.

Last spring, I made the conscious decision to not even care about the yard to begin with. I didn’t plant the vegetables. The flower pots endured a portion of the season. I mowed the grass twice and then decided I didn’t care. This was also about the time I let all the houseplants die and threw them in the trash, pots and all. Two summers of overwhelm and dead lawn and no harvest.

But something is different this April. During my semi-annual, embarrassingly neurotic “favorite month” check-in with myself, I reaffirmed that yes, April is still in third place, behind May and October, but damned if it doesn’t feel like my actual favorite right now. The first buds on the trees! The croci! (That’s how I pluralize crocus, fight me). The daffodils and tulips and extra daylight and the goddamned hope of it all! Oh, I love April. Everything feels possible in April.

And I feel that possibility thrumming in my very veins. In the past two months, I have purchased and kept alive no fewer than seven (!!) house plants. I put new soil down where the dogs dug holes in my backyard. I purchased bulbs and wildflowers and considered re-seeding the grass and potentially watering it occasionally. Optimism is blossoming along with my tulips. Tides are turning. I am coming home to myself.

Things are blooming

Two things changed this spring. First, I have found that I actively long for, invite, and welcome beauty in my life. I crave it in my home, which I have reclaimed with a bright red dining room, a yellow whimsy wall with quirky art, and a “Down the Rabbit Hole” staircase leading to my new writing space, a bedroom that is audaciously orange with purple walls and walls adorned with poppies. It felt like waking up from a coma to behold the earth for the first time—being aware of beauty and actually having interest in aesthetics must mean I’m out of trauma mode.

I recently proclaimed that I “love every single room in this house,” something I didn’t think was possible in the wake of the divorce, and I immediately realized that needed to apply to the outdoors, too. I want colorful flowers and a yard that does not appear to be serving as a camp for wandering eclectic performers. I want my vegetable garden. I want a tidy porch. I want it to be beautiful.

The second shift is even more significant: I realized that I am actually capable of caring for the inside and outside of my house. I can remember to water. I can plant. I can rake and dig and prune and carry piles of leaves and sticks and I can work until I am filthy and bleeding and exhausted. All the things I believed I could not do on my own—did not know how to do—are within my reach.

And after I reach the end of a grueling work season, I will allow the tending of my home and garden to be a source of joy, not the task pushing me over the edge into overwhelm. (I mean, we’ll see. Don’t hold me to this. August could find me bitter and cursing even more rampant swaths of deadness.) I have enviously watched friends who love their gardening, truly not understanding how it can bring them peace and not drive them to resentment at one more thing to care for. But I can feel the change, the pull—I think this year might be different. I don’t forget to water my plants—they are mine, and they bring me joy, and I look forward to caring for them.

I shared an early divorce haiku a few weeks ago, as many of my writing groups had been delving into the archetype of the Wild Woman. There have been moments—weeks and months at a time—since my divorce that my house and yard have felt like more than I can handle. This confession makes me burn with shame because I am so lucky to have this home, a safe place to live, space outside to move and play. But right now I feel differently—while it is difficult to manage everything on my own, I am doing it. I am enough. And more importantly, the tending feels like freedom.

Re-wilding: goodbye lawn, hello meadow.

I decided this weekend that in lieu of a traditional front lawn—my grass is patchy, thick tufts scattered amidst dirt like a deranged, unwell Chia pet—I am going to cultivate a native meadow. Yep, that’s right. Like this one. I mean, maybe slightly less whimsical and storybook-ish. Fewer flowers for sure. I also don’t live in a forest. But you get the idea—free images of wildflower meadow lawns are hard to come by.

Photo by Sergey Konstantinov on Unsplash

This one might be a little more realistic.

Photo by Mauro Romero on Unsplash

As soon as I’d mentally committed to my plan, I texted my bestie across the street: Fuck the lawn. I’m going to make a wildflower meadow in my front yard. She immediately replied that she was literally doing the exact same thing and we had both been browsing the internet for ideas at the same time. 🤯 So, bring on the neighborhood witchy wild women—the cul-de-sac coven— and the era of wild lawns.

It could be a hot mess. But I’m going to try. Because I can. Because my lawn is mine. This weekend, I raked and dug and seeded wildflowers amidst the grass, sprinkling pots and beds with flower seeds, and I can’t wait to see what happens. During my very serious research late Saturday night, I discovered the term “Chaos garden.” Um, yes please. I pinned that shit and then returned to my full moon ceremony in the warm spring night like the wild woman that I am.

My meadow, my chaos garden, could be a disappointment, or not what I planned, and it’s highly likely it will be imperfect. But I can say this for certain—it’s going to be wild.

XO,
Steph

If you enjoyed this post, check out:
I Hired a Co-Parent
My ADHD Recovery: It’s Not What You Think
Let’s Talk About All Fours

Tell us about the day you left. Tell us about your mediation over Zoom, what it cost you to move or stay, how it feels to co-parent with your ex-husband, how you threw his toothbrush into the trash. Write about the moment you knew; write about the first anniversary; write about the audacity of his attorney or the passive aggressiveness of his mother. Tell us about his affair, or yours. Write about what it feels like to have "50/50" custody when you are parenting project manager. Tell us the secrets you have been carrying.

Pour onto the page your rage, your shame, your grief, your glee, your ambivalence. Your story might be heartbreaking or hilarious or shocking or relatable. You might make us cringe or gasp or weep or burn with rage or nod our heads or write our senators. Write the story that has been weighing on you, and release what you have been holding. Tell us the truth, and know that none of your story will be redacted.

Submission guidelines here.

Announcements!

• Tickets to LTYM Boulder are now on sale! Grab yours for Sunday, May 4th at 4 pm here. If you are out of town, you can buy a livestream + recording ticket here!

• Grab tickets to I’m My Therapist’s Favorite: A Comedy Show About the Chaos in All of Us here. The show is Sunday, April 27th at the Louisville Underground.

• Join MidCircle, a writing community for midlife women with co-working, prompts, critique groups, weekly workshops, and more.