Sitting in the Garden
July 13th 2025 | Oberstaufen, Germany
Where do I go from here?
I write to you from a grayed wooden table under the shade of a small apple tree, on a day that leans towards the more beautiful of this life— bright blue sky and brighter white clouds. The winds pass through this valley like the birds that float above the pines, and they meet me in company, barefoot and sleeveless, remembering all the good sensations of living. Just now, Nala, a mother sheep around here, bumps into my elbow and asks for a bit of attention.
Six days ago, I was somewhere very different from here. I was three months into my travels, moving from place to place as quickly as the trains would take me. Six days ago, I had landed on the rooftops of my friend’s apartment in Germany. It was evening, and we were gazing on the terrace out into the old city of Aachen.
I had no plans for the next day. I had no idea where I would be going, or where I would be sleeping. In fact, I didn’t even know where I would want to go. My mind was scrambled, like an overgrowth. I had a train pass to take me anywhere in the continent, but I wasn’t interested in going anywhere at all. The dilemma was odd, a strange state of idle. It was silent and peaceful as we watched the sun set.
Returning back down, I had thrown out a couple online volunteer applications for last minute helpers [through a site called Workaway*]. Somewhere in nature, I decided, somewhere I could have some time to think, to detangle.
Today, at the grayed table, the sun rays warm my arms. It is a Sunday, in the south of Bavaria, and it is my day off from the volunteer work that I had miraculously set up that Monday night in Aachen, and had set off for the very next morning.
I had been graciously welcomed by a woman named Brigitte, who owns a farm with sheep, bees, and a big beautiful garden. She is a hard worker with a gentle, quiet demeanor and a smile that glows. One day, as we returned from a walk from a nearby nature preserve, I commented that she is always smiling. At this, she just smiled at me.
Brigitte, in blue, beside her flowers.
She needed someone as last minute as I did, and by chance we were working within the same time parameters: the next eight days. It was enough time in one spot for me, I had decided, to settle down for a bit. To be in one spot for a while after traveling and filling my brain with so many new things. After the first couple days, I had formed a routine of rising early, eating well, and in my free time, sitting in nature.
For our time together, we weeded around the garden, scooped sheep droppings, picked red currants, and weeded some more. On the third day, when Brigitte listed out the tasks we would be doing, she ended with:
“…and after that, if nothing else, there will always be more weeds.”
It didn’t take long before I realized that most of our time working would be dealing with weeds. One time, when we were moving to pull weeds from a different part of the garden, Brigitte stopped briefly on the path alongside a rock wall to show me some flowers. We ended up spending the next half hour there — weeding.
“…there will always be more weeds.”
Multi-tasking, I used my headphones to listen to the news and various podcasts. But I noticed that Brigitte always seemed content with the tasks themselves. Curious, I asked what she thinks about when she gardens. She told me that she meditates.
Later that day, after our work together, I wandered into the local woods and sat with the river. I thought about miscellaneous things. I thought about nothing. I thought about all the effort it took to maintain a garden— and that I was just one volunteer for eight days.
The next day, while weeding, I asked her if the goal was to obtain the perfect garden.
Brigitte looked down, nodding slowly. “Hm, a perfect garden,” she repeated, “It is never a perfect garden.”
She explained to me that a garden is full of individuals— the various plants— that help and live off of each other. One may suffer for the other to thrive.
The tree above us, with its flourishing branches and leaves, takes sunlight away from the bed below it. It is a dynamic ecosystem that grew as a collective.
I nodded and continued my tasks.
On the fourth day, I left my headphones in my room for my garden tasks and found myself drifting off into my own meditation. It had begun to make sense to me now. Volunteers like me come and work in the garden together with Brigitte year by year, and yet it is still not perfect, as if it was never meant to be. And perhaps the importance lay not in the outcome of a perfect garden, but rather in the pursuit of the perfect garden. The upkeep was necessary and perfection was impossible— there would always be more to do, more to tend, and more to weed. My mind began to consider a new metaphor.
Back at the grayed table, I think back to arriving at the farm.
Being here, I was settling into slow living again. It was as if I was taking the time to sit within my own imperfect garden. Once, distracted by chasing bees and singing with the birds out in the big, big world, I was now under the shade of my apple tree. I sat long enough for one to drop and for me to taste the sweetness it delivered. The sitting took shape in various ways— from meditating by the river and calling out to the trees, to bringing out my journals and books once again, of which I had forgotten about deep in my backpack.
Returning to my tasks in the garden day by day, I became more grounded as my roots grew stronger and my own weeds began to clear from within the bushes.
I had more motivation to try the bright berries of my books I had been putting off. I saw the symbiosis between a clear head and fluid speaking. And, most of all, I was spending time and paying attention to the details of my garden — my self.
Through slow living I was settling back into my own skin again. By allowing that time to sit with myself, I more carefully took in the lessons from the last three months of travel. It was as if I was extracting the details that a book provides rather than skimming over the exciting summary.
I took the time to consider the value from the friendships and the fleeting exchanges I had along the way. I took the time to be grateful.
I think back to the question I had last week, where do I go from here, and I realize it wasn’t so much the physical place I was needing to go to, but the headspace I was needing to go back into. I needed to go to myself, to sit in my own garden for a while.
Like everyone is in the midst of their own garden-story, I’m just here plucking at my own weeds, trying to get to the very root of them. I’ve now claimed the idea that it will never be perfect, that it is never meant to be perfect, and that there will always be more weeds. This just means there will always be change in life to grow from.
Working in the garden.
Later that fourth day, after Brigitte and I sat for lunch together, she announced:
“I think I will bake a cake.”
I perked up. I hadn’t had a home-baked good in months! I asked if she would be making it with currants, and together we decided that dark chocolate would go lovely with it.
With a glint in her eye, she sent me off to pick more currants while she prepared the dough, and after delivering a bowl of berries and completing a few more garden tasks, she called me in to share a slice of warm dark chocolate cake with the freshly picked currants baked into it.
The cake was gone two days later, and I was gone three days after that.
Now, as I sit before this new table, an orange fold-out fitted with the metal support of the intercity train, a peace sits in my heart. I wonder briefly if I will fall back into old ways again, but I realize that even though this is probable, with the dynamism of life, that now I had my very own garden-story to consider. Something to help guide me back when I’m off chasing the bees.
My fingers fly across this keyboard like this train speeding away from Bavaria— with refreshed cognition, the lessons of Brigitte’s farm in my heart, and the enriched garden soil that still sits under my fingernails.
____
*Workaway is an online platform that connects volunteers and hosts all around the world for a cultural and skills exchange.
Author’s Note:
The events of this experience took place in July of 2025, and was written and edited in the following months. I have since returned to my hometown in Boise, Idaho, and am living in a work-trade residence where I help with (keeping very on-topic here…) more garden tasks.
And yes— this does include a lot of weeding :)
By reading this post, you help support my ambitions to become a better writer. If you feel compelled, I would love to hear feedback or comments, as I am still in the early stages of my writing.
Also note that a German translation is currently in the works.
Special thanks to Vanessa for editing, Brigitte for the experience, and my dad for always finding the words that encourage me on.
Thank you for reading,
Mia
Sunset over Aachen, Germany. July 7th, 2025.
In Pursuit of the Thing is a forgiving blog that is never meant to be perfect. Its main purpose is to be an outlet for telling stories, and that of learning how to tell stories.
