Wow. I wrote some really embarrassing things in my list of “things you don’t know about me.”

I settled upon something mundane—that I like to garden barehanded, pulling on the roots of [what I believe is] mugwort.

I journaled about my experience gardening that day—transplanting Hosta with the help of my son and his friends and digging out weeds that were suffocating the Hosta already there.

I learned a few things about gardening from two of his friends, one whose grandmother is a horticulturist who planted rooftop gardens in New York City, and has a lovely garden of native species here in Rhode Island.

We pulled out many plants to support the Hosta—goldenrod, mugwort (so I am told), wood sorrel, porcelain vines and many plants I do not know. I argued with myself in my journal about whether I was tampering with nature.

At the same time, many of these vines and weeds were non-natives, pushing out the native plants.

In the end, I wrote:

I shrugged off these thoughts, dug my hands into the soil, tugged hard at the orange root lifted from its home and parted the loamy, dark earth.

Your Turn

Did you find it easy or hard to list things that most people don’t know about you?

How about picking one to explore?

What was it like to write about it?

Share an excerpt, an insight, a struggle or question. Comment below.