Fridays in Satoyama Yoga classes are for community reflection and conversation. We practice half an hour of movement, then sit together and talk. It’s one of my favorite days, and not because I lead only 30 minutes of asanas.
Today, we had a special assignment: tell your life story in 4 minutes. I gave a suggestion that instead of simply listing a timeline of births, graduations, and other obvious life milestones, we’d try to find a life story that used common thread from childhood to today.
Everyone has something that they did or loved as children that they still do or love now. For me, there are quite a few threads, but for today, I decided to tell the story of my life via gardening:
“When I was four years old or so, my mother planted a vegtable garden in the front yard. I was so excited to pull up my first carrot, but felt dismayed that it was only 3″ long and crooked. The carrots I knew were long and straight. But it was delicious anyway. A few years later, my neighbors were building a garden and I wanted to help. So I waited until they went into lunch and I picked up the pitchfork and lots of blood ensued (read more about that here). When Tod & I were newly married, I created a checkerboard garden in the front yard of our rented apartment, planting herbs and medicinal plants like wormwood, tansy, lemon balm, lavender, feverfew, and hops. We also had a dill plant that grew taller than me. It was a neighborhood landmark, remarkable to have a garden in the front yard at that time, and it smelled good in the rain! Fast forward to now, past multiple attempts are Tokyo balcony gardening. At 555, we have an abundance of gardening opportunities, from ornamentals in the front garden to fruit trees surrounding the house and a field we’ve been offered use of. I am looking forward to planning and planting the garden in the coming years.“
And that’s my life story in 4 minutes. We also heard about Naomi’s lifelong love of Snoopy; Toshiko’s life of baking; and Mamiko’s 20 year shifts.
What thread would you follow to tell a story of your life?
