At Growing Home, we listen to our pain, its echoes, the silence of after It happened—whatever It may be.
If you have a Before and an After, an It you are trying to understand—I invite you to take a seat with us.
WELCOME
to a sanctuary for those who suffer
‘Essay’ comes from the French ‘essayer’: to try.
According to this root, to write an essay is to try something. Isn’t that lovely? Compared to what you learned in school, doesn’t that sound so freeing? With this definition, no formulas or rules apply. There is no word, paragraph, or page count. No special ‘hook’ to lure your readers. There is no right; you can do no wrong.
All you have to do, is try.
Writing an essay is an invitation to try something.
We can all do that.
We all do that, all the time—try new things. And sometimes, the things we try save our lives.
In his memoir, How to Stay Married, Harrison Scott Key humbly chronicles the story of his marriage—the before, during, and after his wife, Lauren, had an affair with a neighbor. To ‘stay married,’ Harrison and Lauren had to try new things, like yardwork. At the end of one chapter, Harrison shares this small story:
“I’d been paying others to mow our yard for a few years and enjoyed this luxury. When you trim your own hedges, you learn a lot about your home, and what you learn is that your property is aggressively and continually doing the opposite of what you would prefer: gutters stop, eaves rot, crabgrass runs riot, feral cats colonize crawl spaces for their fun cat orgies. A mowed lawn on a midsummer’s morning is a thing of beauty, but doing it yourself won’t let you ignore all that has gone sideways in your little world. Every time I cut my grass, I dream of selling, or perhaps torching, this home. But now I have a home to save.
“I could start with the landscaping.”1
Among other new practices, yardwork saved Harrison’s marriage by giving him a place to start. Though he couldn’t find answers to all his questions or learn in a few easy steps how to be a better husband, Harrison could pick up some tools. He could mend what was broken around their home to begin the work of mending the brokenness within it.
Three years later, during a date, Lauren confesses to cheating with the neighbor again. On the drive home, Harrison’s chest churns with rage; getting out of the car, he strides to the garage. Lauren asks what he is doing.
“Yardwork,” he says.2
Because he had practiced yardwork as a means of repair, Harrison was prepared to take his anger out on the shrubs and weeds rather than another person. Healing could begin again, around their home if not inside it, because he tried something.
Had courage to try, and keep trying.
At Growing Home, we will write an essay about the practices which saved us.
Like Harrison’s story. Yardwork saved his marriage because it is an embodied practice—an activity which engages mind and body toward a constructive end. Harrison couldn’t do everything to save his marriage all at once. But he could take care of his yard. He could make it beautiful, by directing his heart, mind, and body toward a specific goal.
We all have practices, large and small, which have kept us afloat. I know you do, because I’ve been listening.
describes taking a bath as a redemptive practice—and I know agrees. Steve Salinas, , runs more than 70 miles a week as an essential part of his spiritual disciplines, like meditation. Through collage, layers words, images, and other two-dimensional objects to demonstrate his ongoing story. My husband, Jay, would say making coffee has saved his life; soon, I’ll publish this story. Next week, I’ll first share my story of crochet—how it saved me from staring at beige basement walls and how it continues to connect me to people I love, people I loved.Since writing an essay is a trying all its own, we will not worry about procedures or techniques here. We’ll just tell it, in the way that seems most appropriate to demonstrate the practice.
Like this week.
I’m not telling a story, but I’m sharing an essay in photos.
Let’s practice listening.
using our outline from last week as a framework.
Consider both Harrison’s small story and my essay in photos.
Leave a comment (by posting, texting, emailing—whatever works) simply acknowledging your presence in this place.
If you feel compelled to share more, you could highlight which photos appealed to you, or what parts of Harrison’s story surprised you.
This week, I’m especially interested in your embodied practices of salvation. If you are willing, would you share what activities have saved you? No need to tell the tale just yet; simply make a list of things you’ve tried in hard times.
Here’s mine:
baking
sewing, crocheting, knitting
lying flat instead of curled in a ball when I wake up at night
reading one poem and one psalm at breakfast
drinking the coffee Jay makes (:
drinking water
mending our worn-out clothes
writing slowly in my journal
And I could probably think of more, if I took some time to think smaller. (Those are my favorite; who knew taking a bath could save you?! Delightful.)
What are yours?
Thanks for being here. Take care.
—CJS
Thanks for listening with me.
If you found this prompt valuable and have the means, would you consider becoming a paid subscriber, so we can continue this vital work together?
Better yet—share it with someone who might need a place to listen and to be heard in their suffering.
from Chapter 14: “Exiled from the Magic Kingdom,” 118. Avid Readers Press, 2023.
from Chapter 22: “Back and There Again,” 178-9.
This is such a beautiful collection of tenderness and strength. Thank you so much for including me in it! That means the absolute world to me!
So so lovely! Thank you, friend. Love the small things. Just had some lovely baths this last week and it was delightful.