I grew up in my mom’s garden. Honeysuckle, onion grass, and dirt are the aromas of my childhood. I still love to hang out in the yard with my mom, still barefoot but now with coffee, while she points to different plants and a little bit of the conversation goes over my head but I listen anyway because I want to know all of it. I want to be in the club where they speak garden lingo. I want sliced tomatoes with my dinner that I plucked fresh five minutes ago. Sprinkled with the basil I grew from seed. I want to swap freshly picked bouqets with my mother regularly. I want gardening muscles.

Plants that have not survived in my potted stoop “garden” I blame on the curse that is Savannah humidity. That may not be fair to Savannah but one day I think I will have some ground to grow things, and I pray those things look like what’s in my mom’s* garden.

*and my grandma’s…after all that’s where my mom gets it.