Finding Abundance in the Midst of Discord
Before we ever imagined packing up our suburban life and moving off-grid, Dan and I did what we thought responsible people our age were supposed to do.
We downsized.
We left our larger suburban home and moved into a one-story condo on Little Harbor, which we affectionately called the Little Harbor House. It checked all the boxes for the future we thought we were supposed to want: one story, less house, almost no yard, and therefore almost no yard work.
Low maintenance.
That was the goal.
Looking back, there were signs all around us that perhaps “low maintenance” wasn’t what Dan and I wanted at all.
We just hadn’t learned how to read them yet.
One of those signs arrived home from Hawaii.
Our daughter Katie had been living there for about five years when she returned to California. One day, while we were talking about the things she missed about Hawaii, she mentioned her garden.
Our Little Harbor House certainly didn’t have much of one. There was only a small patch of actual dirt, surrounded by a deck, walkways, fencing, and hardscape.
But there was space.
“If you miss gardening,” I told her, “use ours.”
It was a simple invitation. I don’t remember thinking much about it.
Katie did.
Slowly, she began claiming little corners of the courtyard. Pots appeared. Flowers arrived. Then came crystals and gems and whimsical little objects tucked among the plants.
And, of course, the fairies.
Katie began creating a fairy garden, filling it with beautiful little things that might make a fairy feel welcome. Tiny figurines appeared among the leaves. Gnomes found homes. Crystals caught the sunlight.
Something changed almost immediately.
The grandchildren began wanting to be outside.
Instead of waiting for Nonna to turn on a screen, they had something to explore.
Scout especially loved it. She would wander through the garden searching for gnomes, crystals, gems, and any evidence that the fairies might have visited while she wasn’t looking.
A courtyard that had been designed largely around the idea of less work was becoming a place of imagination.
And then something else happened.
Dan got involved.
Shortly before Katie came home, Dan and I had rescued a collection of succulents that were going to be thrown away during one of our construction company’s remodeling projects. We brought them home and stuck them into an assortment of pots.
There wasn’t much artistry involved.
They survived.
Mostly.
But after Katie began transforming the courtyard, I noticed Dan paying more attention to those neglected succulents.
He started watching videos and reading about propagation. He divided plants and made new ones. One succulent became several. Cuttings found their way into pots. Pots multiplied.
Katie added flowers, crystals, color, and whimsy.
Dan propagated.
Their approaches weren’t always the same.
In fact, they sometimes weren’t remotely the same.
I remember one particular day when their different ideas about the garden finally collided. Dan had encroached somehow on an area Katie had created as her own, and she was angry—or perhaps hurt. I don’t remember every detail anymore, only that there was an argument.
I stepped outside carrying that familiar mother’s instinct to worry whenever two people you love are upset with one another.
And then I looked around.
Really looked.
There were plants everywhere.
Succulents lined the walkway. Flowers spilled from pots. Katie’s fairy garden had become a magical little world for the grandchildren. Hummingbirds visited. Butterflies fluttered through. Bees and other pollinators had places to feed and rest, and a little bee hotel hung over the fairy garden.
There was barely any fence left that didn’t have something growing on it or hanging from it.
Even I had joined in. Inspired by what was happening around me, I created a wall planter and planted an outdoor herb garden.
Our supposedly low-maintenance courtyard was bursting at the seams.
And standing there in the middle of a disagreement about the garden, I suddenly saw something much larger than the disagreement.
I saw abundance.
It made me think about the strange economics of that little fairy garden.
I had given Katie something that seemed scarce: space in a very small yard.
But giving her ownership of that space hadn’t left us with less.
It had multiplied.
Katie’s creativity gave the grandchildren a reason to go outside. Their excitement brought more life into the courtyard. Katie’s gardening inspired Dan to begin propagating plants. His propagation produced more plants. Their combined efforts inspired me to grow herbs.
The flowers attracted hummingbirds.
The plants fed butterflies and bees.
The courtyard became more beautiful.
We spent more time outside.
And somehow, from one small decision to say, Yes, use the garden, there came more of almost everything.
More plants.
More beauty.
More curiosity.
More creativity.
More life.
There was even, occasionally, more arguing.
But perhaps abundance doesn’t require the absence of discord.
Sometimes abundance grows right through the middle of it.
As I stood there looking at everything Katie’s initiative had set into motion, I felt such appreciation for our beautiful daughter and her passionate heart. She had brought a confident energy into that little courtyard and treated it not as a limitation, but as a place filled with possibility.
Maybe the fairies really had blessed us.
Because somewhere among all those succulents, crystals, herbs, flowers, grandchildren, hummingbirds, and competing gardening philosophies, another idea had quietly taken root in me.
Maybe Dan and I weren’t meant for low maintenance.
Maybe tending things wasn’t a burden we needed to eliminate from our future.
Maybe growing things fulfilled us.
Maybe getting our hands dirty was part of what made us happy.
And if we could create this much life in one tiny courtyard…
what might we do with land?