I didn’t set out to stop weeding. It simply happened.
One late summer morning I stood at the back window, tea in hand, and noticed the garden had softened at the edges. The borage had crept across the path. Dandelions, bold as ever, nodded in the breeze. I thought about tidying. But the kettle was still warm and the day already felt full.
It wasn’t laziness. More like a quiet surrender. Not neglect. Just a gentle kind of permission. To let it be, for now.
That week I kept my gloves on the hook. The pruning shears stayed in the drawer. I walked the garden often, but didn’t step in. The roses looked a bit unruly, not unhappy. The bees came thick and slow, their hum louder than usual. I took it as a kind of blessing.
Grief, I’ve found, rarely announces itself. It seeps into small things. Through the compost bin. The undone corners. I didn’t have the words for it at the time, but cutting the roses felt wrong. Like interrupting a sentence still finding its shape.
So I left the garden alone. And nothing broke.
The soil stayed. The stems swayed and held. The roses bloomed with a tired sort of beauty. Not trimmed or showy. Just honest.
By the end of the month, I missed the rhythm. I reached for the shears, not to fix anything, but to say, I’m still here. A quiet gesture.
Letting the garden stay wild reminded me of something I’d almost forgotten. That not all beauty needs shaping. Some of it only shows up when you step back.