I bought this house almost two decades ago and have loved its yard and its windows (among other features) to the extent that I can't sell it despite my ever-widening commute. I've always been a lover of growing green things and have kept a lush collection of houseplants that green up my cold winter windows and migrate to the porch every summer so that it becomes my living room in the warmer months. I get lots of fireflies and have total privacy from the neighbors, and I love that being surrounded in green. In the dusk hours, it seems like being underwater out there.

I have a small garden spot outside my kitchen window that I long ago designated as my herb and summer vegetable garden. I thought I'd plant some herbs I could use in the kitchen (I use herbs instead of salt) and some tomatoes and cucumbers. But year after year, I would research and carefully select the soils and seeds and seedlings, and till the land and follow the instructions of all the best garden books and every year the entire garden would mysteriously go to ruin by midsummer. I became convinced that I had a defective gene (I had never been able to learn the guitar, after all) and/or somehow pissed off the garden gods and any effort was destined to failure ... unless it was in a pot on my porch or in the dining room window. In a pot, I could control the destiny and environmental influences and I've maintained some of my plants for over 20 years, giving away offspring every year to like-minded green thumbs.

But this herb and veggie garden would never come to fruition. I warned people who tried to give me donations to it that it was a death sentence to give me anything that needed to live outdoors. I was defective in my gene that governed my gardening abilities. I was operating with a personal deficit, as far as I was concerned, and I just had to learn to compensate for it with my potted plants.

And then one night only a few weeks ago, I was sitting with two wonderful friends around a firebowl in one's backyard and we were talking about his beautiful garden. He has such a touch and I could only pine for the color he had managed to produce in his own backyard. We were offering each other cuttings and pots and such and I made mention of my plentiful supply of black walnuts in my yard. Did they want some?

One fellow asked if the garden space I had been lamenting was anywhere near the black walnut tree. Why, yes, within say 20 feet or so. And they both nodded at each other and declared my plague that of the black walnut tree. It wasn't me after all. It wasn't ME ... ?! After all?!! I was not being punished and it wasn't my shortcoming? These black walnut trees had been hanging over me and my garden all these years and dripping some sort of toxic dust over my efforts, completely unbeknownst to me. I had no idea that year after year, my efforts were doomed before they were even conceived because of these trees. I simply blamed myself.

But even now, I don't blame the trees; they're doing what trees do. That would be like blaming the cat for eating a bird or the dog for killing a squirrel. What I do find curious is my virtually primal instinct to blame myself first and ask questions later. What's that about?

It made me think about all the other forms of black walnut trees that hang over parts of our lives, casting tiny toxic pollen over our every day efforts to thrive and to flourish. How many times have we all felt out of control of our circumstance, or unable to figure out what WE were doing wrong? Relationships, jobs, personal journeys, addictions ... how many of these areas of our lives have been doomed to the effects of black walnut trees in the form of no-win situations, dysfunctional relationships, bad choices, ill-advised decisions and self-imposed dilemmas? I guess it goes back to that adage "can't see the forest for the trees" and the need to take a wider view, a broader perspective, a bird's eye view.

Knowing this, though, has changed my approach to my own (and shared) failures and my relationship with the black walnut trees in my life. I have become more tolerant of my own failings as well as the failings of others. The black walnut trees exist in every life but can not become an excuse for surrendering to their effects or discounting responsibility for our acknowledgement of their effects on our daily efforts. Instead, we have to take responsibility to either remove the tree ... or move the garden.

I have discussed my theories about Black Walnut Syndrome (BWS) with one of my closest friends and we were able to retrospectively identify those people in our past lives who were clearly our black walnuts. If only we could channel that clarity of vision forward! We realized there are times when we have had to move the garden rather than try to uproot a grove of these trees, or one sole black walnut that was especially well established and entrenched. It's one thing to snap off a seedling we notice taking root, but another to move our garden into the shade of a fully-developed black walnut tree. For that, we must take extra care.

It takes flexibility and courage to move the garden, but often the results have been no less than amazing. This sort of flexibility is not a cop out or lack of courage, but a simple acknowledgement of that which is greater than our interest or capacity to cope. I have no interest in wiping out black walnut trees, I just want my garden to flourish. When I (finally?) see the black walnut, I'll just move my garden.

Love all the time,
Sophie