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In the late winter, I realized that very little of my former life was available to me. I couldn't re-enter my work, committees, or the brainy relationships and activities that had been so much a part of me. I was looking out the window, thinking that my gardens were inviting me back to them, brain injury or not, and it was sustaining to look forward to doing something so familiar that I could do it and feel like my "real" self.

I hadn’t done any of the autumn clean-up or springtime preparation, though, and became overwhelmed by the amount of work that the gardens needed, compounded by my lack of physical energy. Often I would go out with my weeding bucket, clippers, tools, and good intentions. After what seemed like a forever of working, but was in fact only a few minutes, I’d realize that I was too tired and would just sit there. Unable to do much thinking, I began to do some pretty profound looking. One day, it occurred to me that I was seeing images I’d never seen before, because I’d never been still long enough.

I’ve begun to see beautiful pictures, the kind you see in those luxurious coffee-table books. So now, instead of going to the garden with a bucket full of tools, I take just one (usually clippers for deadheading) and I take my camera. I’m making cards from the photographs. I want to ask my friends to send them to people who are lonely, hurt, sick, forgotten, or weary with the world. It really matters. It makes a difference, seeing that you are being held in someone's thoughts.

I like the way photographing my flowers actually makes me slow down even more. Sometimes I have to wait a very long time for a certain picture because a tiny breeze has moved things out of focus or a bug landed in the wrong place or a cloud just passed over the sun and now I have to wait for the light rays to be just right again.

The healing does continue no matter what, and I don’t have to hurry up with anything. I’ve come a long way in terms of grieving the loss and accepting this brain injury. But I’d really like to build a more solid self-awareness and sense of competence. It seems like there are still many unknowns—too many holes and question marks when I look in the mirror.

Yesterday I was thinking about how I don’t really care for those instant, tidy gardens that look as if they were plopped down by machines instead of growing up from the earth. I’d rather see the young plants and saplings, even if they look too small at first, knowing that they’ll be well-rooted over time.

So often, people seem to be merely skimming the surface of life, impatiently speeding along. Yet if we slow down, go a little deeper, we tap into those wellsprings that have endured for centuries. Out of patience and faith, we grow much stronger. That’s what I like to remind myself these days. “You don’t have to hurry up with anything” is great advice for both healing and landscaping.