June 2024 Slug Club

Hello sluggy friends,

It is mid June and I am finding myself deep in my favorite routine: Walking through my front door, and confidently marching through my messy house into the garden. I work from home so luckily this gets to happens anywhere from 4 to 12 times a day, depending on how much loitering I feel must be done.

Of course 1 or 2 of those visits include actual tending, watering, weeding, trellising etc.

Most of the time though, I am just poking around.

I have come to believe that this task of loitering in the garden is the most important part of the job. It is easy to forget that while the plants need water, sunlight, soil - DUH. They also need to be seen! To be learned and witnessed in all stages of struggle, growth, blossom, harvest and ending. These patterns are soothing to me and help me more deeply understand my place in my human relationships. Sometimes all we need is just to be together.

2 years ago in June my friend Jillian died in a climbing accident. This year, the anniversary of her death snuck up on me. While looking through some old sketchbooks, I found something I wrote in the weeks after her death.

“Grief will face you with your lowest tide. As a consolation, we are gifted with a massive cleansing of insignificant dramas. In these raw moments we are brutally exposed to our largest hurts while simultaneously being offered piercing moments of clarity.”

In the wake of emotions that have come with losing a friend suddenly and far too soon, here are some things that feel clear to me while I am looking this feeling right in its slimy little face.

I would like to remember that it is an honor to grow older - to transform over and over again with the people that I love. To respect my aging body. What a gift it is to shrink, sag, lose, gain, grey and get lumpy and bumpy with one another.  To witness and acknowledge transformations including death. We rarely get to choose when things end, so I wish for us all to tend to our friendships, celebrate the transformations, saggy butts and all :)

Keep it slow and slimy

Love,