About Garden of Loss

A Garden

The word “garden” has its roots in the Frankish term referring to an enclosure, usually alongside a home, whose primary purpose was ornamental. It did not acquire its meaning as a verb, often used to describe the intentional cultivation of fruits and vegetables around one’s home, until the 18th century. In both cases, garden describes a space where plants are tended to and cared for in order to benefit those nearby, either through their aesthetic beauty or the production of food. The garden brings existential and bodily sustenance nearer, making it more accessible.

Even though a garden is fundamentally, at least etymologically, defined by nurturance of life, the regular introduction of food remnants and old leaves (which is to say, dead things) to the soil in gardens is crucial to its continued capacity to generate and affirm life. This isn’t to suggest that all dead things are beneficial for gardens. For example, because coffee grounds are particularly acidic and contain high amounts of caffeine, putting the grounds directly into the soil will actually stunt plant growth. I am trying to suggest that inherent to gardening is a complex relationship between life and death.

Over the last few years, the violence of capitalism has become more and more apparent. And yet, it also feels nearly impossible to challenge. Because we have a hard time looking at problems that don’t have immediate solutions, our tendency is to look away. And as we become more aware, we are faced with more that we must look away from, making our world smaller and making us feel more isolated.

Bearing Witness: A Salve

The term “witness” comes from the unification of “wit” with the suffix “ness.” Originating in a proto-German language, the noun “wit” refers to knowledge. Not the kind of knowing that is occupied with the recitation of facts, but the kind of knowing that evidences a depth of perceptual understanding. It’s the difference between reading about what a frog looks like, and holding one in your hand. Modified by the suffix “ness” which denotes an activity or status, “witness” describes a person who in the act of somehow articulating this understanding.

Witness is often used with the word “bear,” as in the phrase, “bear witness.” To “bear” something means to carry or support something and was often used in middle English as a synonym for birth. To “bear” something is to labor in the service of its fruition. “Bearing witness” thus denotes the effort to understand.

What I appreciate about the concept of “bearing witness” is that the perceptual understanding it references is not primarily in the service of solving a problem. In this context, understanding is not primarily the means to an end, but an end in itself.

Bearing witness to the tiny passings and massive destruction that marks our world demonstrates a commitment to noticing and then understanding what has been lost. Not primarily to bring it back (assuming that would be possible), but because what has been lost matters.

Because individual bodies are buried in the ground, death can seem to emphasize the individuation of our life. But I would argue that death is actually a reminder of our relationship to each other. This is part of why U.S. culture has developed a pathological avoidance of death and death rituals; it reveals the illusion of American individualism. The memory of life that death leaves behind is a constant reminder of our relational entanglement. We are not the islands we sometimes wish ourselves to be. The prominence of the fantasy question – “what would you bring to a desert island if you were stranded?” demonstrates our hope and faith that with enough planning we can survive on our own. But alas, we cannot. As cultural critic Judith Butler writes, “Let’s face it. We’re undone by each other. And if we’re not, we’re missing something” (Undoing Gender). Gesturing toward the entanglement of love or life, and grief, Butler goes on to say, “If [our undoing] seems so clearly the case with grief, it is only because it was already the case with desire” (Undoing Gender).

Garden of Loss

This is my attempt at bearing witness to mundane passings, not because they are big, but because they matter. The entries here are historical and personal, researched and felt.