Gardens are different.
They are as unique as the people who tend them… shaped by the soil of our past, the seeds of our experiences, and the sunlight of our hopes.
I left my mother’s home at 19, just after my A-levels, to become an au-pair in London, and where I ended up staying for two years. While my mother had me and my brother and married my father at the same age, I couldn’t wait to leave.
I wanted to explore life, to understand what it meant to truly live. To be alive before returning to studies and the weight of expected obligations.
I was so young, so innocent.
My garden was in its earliest stages… tender, sensitive, and not always understood. And when you are that vulnerable, it stings when others don’t appreciate what you are nurturing.
You crave connection, longing for friends who will water your garden… and yours will water theirs… rather than trample on it. But sometimes, even the “right” friends can turn out to be toxic, leaving behind weeds that choke the delicate blooms of your becoming.
My big granny Eva… my paternal grandmother… used to hum and sing to herself the songs of The Comedian Harmonists, the ‘first boyband,’ as she’d say. Melodies from her youth in the 1930s, still alive in her voice.
One song she loved seems to stand out now more than ever: “Irgendwo auf der Welt” (Somewhere in the World - with subtitles).
Its lyrics, translated here, still echo in my heart:
Somewhere in the world, there is a little bit of happiness And I dream of it every moment Somewhere in the world, there is a little bit of bliss And I have been dreaming of it for a long, long time
If I knew where it was, I would go out into the world Because I want to be truly happy from the bottom of my heart Somewhere in the world, my path to heaven begins Somewhere, somehow, sometime
I long for it so much, I dream so often Soon happiness will be mine I long for it so much, I have hoped Soon the hour will come I wait for it day and night I will never give up hope
These words always moved me.
Even now, years after her passing, I feel her presence in the melody. It is as if she is still here, helping me water my garden, reminding me of who I am and what makes me come alive: my sensitivity, my humanity.
These are the roots of my garden, the essence of what it has become today.
“Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror. Just keep going. No feeling is final.”
~ Rainer Maria Rilke
This is the spirit of the compassionate garden.
It grows not despite the storms, but because of them. It blooms not in spite of sensitivity, but because of it.
And it is in the tending… through tears, laughter, and the quiet hum of old songs…that we find our way home.
🌿 Tend Your Inner Garden 🌿
As you move through this week, I invite you to pause and ask yourself:
What is the song or melody that waters your soul?
Where in the world do you feel most at home?
Who has been the unexpected gardener in your life?
I’d love to hear from you: Share your insights below, and let’s water this garden of wisdom together.
Remember: You are both the gardener and the garden. Tend to your roots, but resist what doesn’t serve you… like a garden bending in the wind, never uprooted.
My garden has always been sensitive. Many before me… and I, too… mistook sensitivity for weakness. But it is not fragility. It is the quiet strength of a seedling pushing through the dark, trusting the unseen.
Listening… truly listening… to the whispers of your own heart is an act of trust and defiance. It is staying with the soil, even when it feels unsettled, even when the world demands you harden or hide. In that quiet tension, something true is already taking root.
My big granny knew this. She sang of longing and hope, of happiness waiting somewhere in the world, and in her voice, I heard the promise: my garden could be both rooted and wild.
So I water what moves me. I trust what makes me come alive. Because the most compassionate gardens are not the ones that never bend… they are the ones that bend, and still bloom.
So bloom where you are planted… wild, tender, and free.
As you move through this week, ☘️ may your heart be wild, your roots deep, and your path always lead you home.