I went out to the garden boxes after 8 p.m. I did not feel like going, but it was the only window I was going to have in the week for picking the beans. The plants were weighted down with the harvest. Small row by small row, I pulled the beans off one by one - until I had two ice cream pails full. My low back ached from stretching over the garden boxes, tending to the garden. My slow and intentional summer has made for lots of moments of carefully measured tending in a lot of areas of my life. 

The etymology of tending is from the Latin “tendere” to stretch, in a certain direction. What a fabulous way to think about the way we care! To stretch toward the dog, literally begging for my hand across her belly. Stretch toward dinner, waiting for me to chop an onion as butter melts over heat and begins to sizzle. To stretch toward the one calling my name from the basement. We tend anything to which we turn our attention, our time, our bodies, our hearts. 

It is so easy to divide our moments in a binary of good or bad, easy or hard, joyful or painful, what we want or what we don’t. When we do this, we turn toward or away from things in turn, based on our evaluation of them. It is easy to tend toward my favourite food and people when I am full of energy for a planned excursion; I am so less likely to tend anything that I am resisting and resenting. 

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There was something transformative in the garden box, though, as I gave myself over to the beans. The leaves flopped over my hands as I searched out each string. I was in awe of how much each plant could produce and started to count how many were coming off each one. The pails filled and my spirit lifted. I found myself sweaty and smiling with the abundance of tending to the beans. 

The moments that make up my life are not so unlike the garden. There is a window in which certain things call for my time and attention. Life is nothing if not the constant discernment of which calls to answer. Sometimes there is more choice than others. I can let the beans get overripe if the need for rest is greater. When a family member has an emergency, tending to my fiddle practice falls to the side. And it is a gift to be called toward anything at all!

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Life is nothing more than the moments we are given, stacked and added, stretched and compressed, weaved together in time. If the moments don’t count, then nothing does. 

I am dreaming about a new project. Instead of saying “someday”, I am tending to tiny steps that can be taken today. In between, I am tending to the laundry, and stretching toward the people in my office, listening deep. I am noticing the moments where tending to my cell phone is stretching away from the people I love most and setting it down faster, more often, and for longer stretches of time. 

The moments of my life are for tending, with care. In what direction am I stretching? To whom and for what? Moment by moment I make the choices that will become the story of my life. 

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As my aunt and I were talking about this, I was thinking that it can be a lot of pressure to make the most of the time we are given. Then she said, “I find it really freeing to be reminded that all we have are these moments.” I think she is right. The kids asked if we could go down to the creek tonight so they could catch crayfish. I took my knitting and sat until they were ready to go. 

Moment by moment there are just a few choices to make. I can show up for the moments of my life - or not. I can choose what I stretch my attention toward in this moment, and then decide if I would do the same again next time. I want to tend the moments of my life with freedom and care.