Every life reaches that time when the house – from the basement to the attic – is crammed with stuff. It seems to coincide with the mind being cluttered with memories and regrets; a romance that fizzled for reasons we never understood. Everything, it seems, conspires to multiply. Even sentences are jammed with multisyllable words, and paragraphs grow complex and longer.

We’re swallowed by stuff. Eventually.

As if to add perfect symmetry to my expanding universe, my waistline expands, too.

The garden is no different.

After years of acquiring, this fall I’ve been pulling, digging, ripping, relocating, and watching the ground open, inch by lovely inch. I’m tackling a corner at a time, lest I become overwhelmed.

And I’ve unearthed some beautiful plants that simply needed breathing room.

Twenty years ago, I started with nothing. No, really, nothing. I saw possibility, and then I got carried away. Hell-bent on reducing lawn, I justified the purchase of plant after plant. Now I’m returning to the bare bones beauty that gives each plant a chance to show its loveliness.

I’m paring things down to the essentials. It’s liberating.

The plants are moving on to other gardens. Saying goodbye isn’t always easy, but seeing the look of wonder on the faces of new gardeners has helped. I feel like a new mother leaving her child for the first time as I explain what this plant needs to be happy. I’ve also relocated a few onto our local green for Sunday walkers to enjoy. “Thank you,” say a group of women visiting from Poughkeepsie. “What beautiful little town you have here,” they add as they head off to our local trail.

Maybe this discipline will inform my writing, too? Perhaps that offending sentence that I struggle to rework, could just get cut? I remind myself that I cannot fall in love with my words. Or that rare plant.

I’m returning to open ground, as I declutter and resurrect one crowded corner at a time.

Subtraction trumps addition.

Then a thought stops me dead in my tracks: Why stop at the garden? Inside there’s a library full of books just looking for a home.