“There was a child went forth
every day
And the first object he look’d upon,
that object he became”
Walt Whitman
Leaves of Grass
I am young again and sitting in the cool darkness of Grandmother’s early California bungalow. The smells of oatmeal cookies and simmering marmalade are wrapped around me like warm hands.
Outside, hummingbirds are dipping into the brilliant, red bottlebrush as Grandmother grabs her old straw hat and looks over at me. I wait for the familiar words, “Let’s get busy, Sharon, time to go outside and see just what’s happening in our garden.”
My heart still soars when I smell oatmeal cookies, freshly turned spring earth, carnations in full sunshine. I relive over and over the joys and surprises of each day in our garden. I can sit quietly and string those sweet garden thoughts together, memory upon memory, like my summer garlands of tiny, pink rosebuds.
I know now that the gift my Grandmother Lovejoy gave me is an ancient one that runs like a tenacious woodbine through the childhoods of the hundreds of gardeners who have contributed to my book. A gift which has been quietly passed on from loving aunts and uncles, neighborhood friends, mothers, fathers, grandmothers and grandfathers, teachers, naturalists—it is the magical gift of sharing, a sharing of the reverence for the earth and of the simple miracles of each unfolding day. Sharing the faces in a pansy, the opening of a poppy blossom, the taste of fresh hollyhock cheeses, or a pumpkin big as Cinderella’s coach—small, seemingly insignificant sharings that will pop into our children’s minds when they smell a familiar flower, or watch the sunflower’s slow dance through the day. And they will say to their children, “Come over here, did you ever play tops with an acorn? Want to make a day-long jump rope?” And the traditions and love will keep lengthening, like my never-ending chains of summer rosebuds.
Let our children look upon the flowers of the garden…