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I am up and wide awake (Such an odd expression – what exactly is the alternative to being ‘wide awake’?) at 4 a.m. this morning.  It is a perfect temperature outside.  I hear the first single rooster crowing up the sun across the border in Mexico.  A part of me is eager for the morning light to flood my yard so I can go rescue one of the native southwestern plants I bought that I know – of all of them – is NOT thriving where I planted it.  In fact, it is dying.

I don’t know what is troubling my Henry Eiler’s Quilled Black Eyed Susan, but it was supposed to be the showcase plant in the back yard!  It was supposed to grow into a thriving and glorious giant!  Nope.  Not doing that!  It is shriveling and losing all of its baby leaves as if it is sinking into the earth rather than growing in the opposite direction!

All I can think of is to carefully dig it out and put it back into a pot.  I need to move it where I can watch it carefully, like my precious grandson was watched in his intensive care neonatal environment after he was born six weeks prematurely.

Will it survive?  Can I provide for this little plant what it needs so it can grow past this life-or-death stage?  What am I doing WRONG for it?  Can I figure that out so I can do it RIGHT?

I am a complete newbie when it comes to drip irrigation.  I don’t understand the living complexity of this (for me) massive system I am still in the process of installing in my growing garden.  Only the RIGHT amount of water, at the RIGHT amount of pressure, streaming CORRECTLY through the RIGHT amount of line is needed.  If the ‘zone’ length is too long water comes out at the front end too MUCH and doesn’t make it to the back end of the line.  How do I adjust all of this so that I can guarantee every single plant, each with its own particular and special growth needs just the RIGHT amount of water at the RIGHT periods of time?

I don’t know.  And I hate to sacrifice the life of any individual plant as I work as hard as I can to figure all of this out!

We are evidently in a period of drought down here in southeastern Arizona.  I don’t actually understand what it is about ME that is stimulating me to work so hard to have a yard filled with living, thriving and blooming plants that will bring beauty to this piece of earth IN SPITE of the harsh conditions present here.

I am challenging myself.  I have a WANT and a DESIRE and the INTENTION of trying to cooperate within the limitations of this climate and of this soil and of these growing conditions on this little patch of ground I am living on to MAKE LIFE HAPPEN and to MAKE THAT LIFE BEAUTIFUL.  Of course that suggests (truly) that bare dusty reddish-brown soil on its own is not beautiful to me.  I am suggesting that THINGS CAN BE BETTER if I try hard enough, work hard enough, am determined enough, sacrifice enough.

I want to do something DIFFERENT and SPECIAL here in my little life, my little yard.  I want to figure all of this out!  At the same time, except for needing the vital resource of WATER to move around on this soil to bring life to these plants, I want the garden to be sustainable.  I desire that this garden find its own thriving balance point, its own ‘tipping point’ and stay there provided I can do my part to take care of it correctly.

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On the other hand as I look at my own situation as a human being I know that nothing was done for me during the first 18 years of life (other than being given the physical necessities of shelter, water, food, etc.) correctly.  Me, like the tiny Brown Eyed Susan in my yard spent my entire infant-childhood on the verge of dying.  Not only did nobody NOTICE, nobody CARE, but my parents continually cooperated with each other to make things WORSE for me, never BETTER.

So in a way I guess my gardening here in this arid high desert land is a sort of trauma drama reenactment for me, an effort to ACT out a way to create a beautiful, thriving garden IN SPITE of similar (parallel-symbolic) conditions to my own infant-childhood as they attack these plants.  Can I protect them?  Can I take adequate care of them?  Can I give them what they need?  Can I help them to thrive IN SPITE of all the detriments within this environment that are working against them?

And in the case of this single plant that seems to be losing its battle/struggle to remain alive let alone to GROW, can I-we win this battle?  Can I figure out what is WRONG and make it BETTER?  Can I ‘repair’ the ‘rupture’ in the patterns of this plant’s existence so that it can actually continue to BE on this earth?

Today I will try.  I will do everything in my power to help this plant.

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