Potatoes

We are luxuriating in this long weekend. Dom is ponied up to his computer keeping himself busy with tutorials or the ever fiery news. Sam has enjoyed a day by the pool, and been our wonderful companion on this chapter of the adventure.

I planted potatoes.

Ordinary and unromantic as it may seem.

I have both simultaneously been letting go of things, and investing toward the future.
I'm looking toward the three months we will live away from home, and trying to figure out how to best manage the things that need attention more frequently than months at a time. While I love our little gardens, I realize some won't make it through the long haul. Letting things go is a small price to pay for the wellness of Dom.

A couple years ago, we had some potatoes sprout in the kitchen. We cut them up and buried them in a planter, down by the barn completely forgetting about them. Autumn and winter came and went, and by spring, we couldn't figure out what the green plants were growing in the planter. I pulled one up and there were healthy new potatoes. We had garden fresh potatoes for some time. We'd forgotten the brief labor of putting them in the ground, so they were an exceptional surprise.

Of course I had just done our monthly shop just before Dom's diagnosis. I was looking forward to a summer full of BBQ and hoping to entertain friends. My Mom reaped some reward as I sent her home with things I'd bought on sale in multiples that Dom can't eat now, and I cannot eat by myself. The bag of potatoes had sprouted while we were away for 3 weeks. I put them outside to wait for time.

Today I found the time. I buried the potatoes in the ground with the hope that when we are through the bulk of this journey next spring, I'll walk down to the garden, thinking everything would have died away, and there will be the surprise of potatoes again. Maybe there won't be. I don't know. But I planted them with hope.