I don’t think I have ever put all of my eggs in one basket. My life seems to have always walked a line between two “things”. Sometimes I found myself juggling between more than two. I learned how to do this after my third child was born. How do you hold three kids with two arms? Balance.
Maybe I just get bored with one basket. The garden could be considered one basket. I’m never bored there. The garden is full of life with so much activity, offering many different experiences. I learned early on in my horticulture education that I had no desire to grow 5 acres of one type of bedding plant, and when cannabis was legalized, I considered that, but was reminded of what life would be growing a mono crop in a building full of imitated sunlight. I have floated between full and part time off farm jobs while farming over the past 20 years. I have always lived on the county line.
There seems to be an unseen space between the multiple baskets that I hold along the different paths I walk through my life. For example, am I holding a farmer or a gardener basket? I guess that depends on the definition of each, but really, the only difference is the amount of what I am growing. My business is the farm, growing in large quantities for sale. When I am working around the apothecary, I am gardening and landscaping.
I float from one side to the other, between the opposites, always feeling in a transitional state.
farmer gardener
landscaper row cropping
food plants ornamental plants
culinary medicinal
science art
woman girl
plant animal
self-care care giver
grower formulator
masculine feminine
physical spiritual
light dark
water sand
sun shade
warm cold
Can you relate? What kind of baskets do you carry?