Sierra V. Fedorko

The July Garden, 2023

In the same month, the sunflowers began blooming and the “firework” flower showed its face, we also had a rattlesnake slithering near our front door and another one coiled and rattling loudly in the flowerbed. While Heidi’s rose grows tall in a way it never has before (it’s like it knows she’s here!!), and the zinnias burst in colorful display, the sun is glaring harshly and the air is sticky.

While the red rose bush blooms in such fullness, a deer comes by at night to eat the zinnia tops and the melon’s leaves… whatever it could reach through the fence. While the mums go like popcorn, the black-eyed susans and daisies are spent and worn.

So as July closes and August nears, the freshness of the garden wanes. It is heavy with life, but the newness, the youth, the flourishing has been touched by the brittle parts of summer. Still there’s a triumph here, and it’s blooming season is far from over. But on the whole, everything is much less soft.

It reminds me a bit of motherhood these days. There’s that burst and bloom of newness when you’re pregnant for the first time and in the first year or so of motherhood. But then? There’s a settling in, a putting down of roots.

There’s no longer the effortless softness of a new, fresh life season, but there is a triumph to it. There is a commitment to beauty. A realness to the glaring magic spread long and loud between the harshness, the loss, and the brittle elements.

And best of all there’s a knowing that rattlesnakes, wilting, difficulty, and every uphill current has no power to truly steal the love and joy you hold and nurture. You’re a mother. And it’s very, very good. So, I if could describe motherhood as a season, I would say,

Motherhood is July and August.

It’s full. It’s rich. It’s magic. It’s hard. It’s tired. It’s brittle. It’s bright to the point of sunburn. It’s good to the point of wonder. It reminds me of a poem I wrote earlier this year (also shared in this other post).

Cut me open and you’ll find–

dinner plans, grocery lists, nap routines, lullabies, and dishes in the sink,

diaper changes, laundry loads, dishes put away,

a kitchen floor that needs a broom, dishes in the sink again,

a broken record saying “breathe!” and endless, endless everything.

But if you could just leave me be! I’m not a haggard woman in need of sympathy, and I decline the invite to the worldwide pity partying.

Cut me open, but at your risk. You’ll find my life and a happy woman! If you’re offended I can’t help it. Herein my joy, my job, lifeblood.

I am their mother

Glad to the marrow!

-S.V.F. (Lifeblood)

And I think the garden gets it. I think the garden agrees.