{"id":2232,"date":"2010-11-30T07:00:17","date_gmt":"2010-11-30T15:00:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/janaremy.com\/?p=2232"},"modified":"2010-11-30T07:00:17","modified_gmt":"2010-11-30T15:00:17","slug":"separation-or-some-big-changes-ahead-for-our-family","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.janaremy.com\/pilgrimsteps\/2010\/11\/30\/separation-or-some-big-changes-ahead-for-our-family\/","title":{"rendered":"Separation (or, some big changes ahead for our family)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"rose<\/a>One of my favorite parts of my garden was my climbing rose.\u00a0 I’d dug this plant out of the flowerbed in our old apartment.\u00a0 The gardeners kept whacking the rose to the ground (it wasn’t part of the landscaping) and it just kept growing back.\u00a0 Whack-grow-whack-grow.\u00a0 Finally one day I took a trowel and dug up as much of its root system as I could, and took it to my garden plot.\u00a0 It thrived and soon became a beast of a bush with runners everywhere.\u00a0 I tied them into a column and trained them over to a post on the other side of a path to form an arch.\u00a0 During the summer that I was sick, it was this rose bush that I thought about most often.\u00a0 It brought such joy to me.\u00a0 I’d decided\u00a0 that when John and I re-married (which we planned to do given that our Mormon temple marriage was so meaning-less to us after leaving the LDS church), I wanted to stand under that arch.<\/p>\n

So a few weeks ago when our community garden was slated to be demolished, I left that rose arch as the last thing I dug out.\u00a0 It was so big, I figured there was no way I could extract it from the soil and put it into a pot.\u00a0 Some friends who were helping me with the garden said that they would try to rescue it for me, because they knew how much I loved that plant.\u00a0 They dug away at that thing for well over an hour, we had to cut some of the roots with a hacksaw to get the main plant out.\u00a0 But it seemed well-worth the effort for such a special rose…<\/p>\n

\"roses,<\/a>When I took pictures in my garden, I nearly always used the macro setting.\u00a0 I liked to get close and see the details and patterns.\u00a0 The veins and textures.\u00a0 To spy small insects.\u00a0 To lose myself in a flower.\u00a0 I never did very well with pictures that showed the entire garden.\u00a0 They were too complicated and messy.\u00a0 The showed the tools and the weeds and the plants that hadn’t been watered well enough.\u00a0 Instead, I made my images close and tight and narrow.\u00a0 I saw what I wanted to see.\u00a0 That’s the PollyAnna in me, I suppose.\u00a0 I have an astute ability to shape the world into something that matches my expectations.\u00a0 While I don’t think that’s always a bad thing–and it’s certainly an excellent coping mechanism that I’ve honed after years of pain and discouragement–I am quickly learning that it has its downside.<\/em><\/p>\n

All of my plants have stories.\u00a0 If you point to one and ask me about it, I’ll tell you who gave it to me, how long I’ve had it, and lots of other details about its growing habits.\u00a0 I especially love to tell the stories of my roses.\u00a0 It wasn’t until I was watering all of my rosebushes this morning that I realized something I hadn’t thought of before.\u00a0 Not one of them was given to me by John.\u00a0 In fact, I didn’t have any plants from him in my garden.\u00a0 I’m not saying that there’s necessarily anything wrong with that–John is not a garden person and he rarely visited my plot.\u00a0 But I think that’s part of this big picture that’s sort of hitting me between the eyes right now.\u00a0 Our priorities and passions are so different.\u00a0 I’ve seen what I want to see for so long.\u00a0 Made assumptions.\u00a0 Framed stories a particular way.\u00a0 Molded my interactions with my spouse to fit a rosy narrative in my head.<\/p>\n

Perhaps its enough to say that I don’t even know if John knew that I wanted to marry under that arch.\u00a0 Perhaps its enough to say that I was so wrapped up in what I saw through the lens of my camera, that I wasn’t aware of what he saw through his–although over time I had noticed that we were no longer pointing our viewfinders in the same direction.\u00a0 Perhaps there really isn’t anything to say now, except that I am sans garden and sans John.\u00a0 He’s chosen to leave our marriage.\u00a0 As of a few days ago we are officially Separated, with plans to divorce.<\/p>\n

I don’t think I’ve intentionally killed a plant before, but I’m realizing that I can’t continue watering the climbing rose.\u00a0 However, I don’t actually think it matters.\u00a0 The plant is nearly dead already.\u00a0 It couldn’t stand the shock of being uprooted and transplanted.<\/p>\n

Note: I’m closing comments on this post.\u00a0 If you are tempted to discuss my family’s situation on Twitter or Facebook or blogs, please keep in mind that our children also follow their parents online.\u00a0 Please respect our privacy. You may contact me directly at janaremyATgmail.<\/strong>
\n<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of my favorite parts of my garden was my climbing rose.\u00a0 I’d dug this plant out of the flowerbed in our old apartment.\u00a0 The gardeners kept whacking the rose to the ground (it wasn’t part of the landscaping) and it just kept growing back.\u00a0 Whack-grow-whack-grow.\u00a0 Finally one day I took a trowel and dug […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4890,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2232","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-garden","category-john"],"yoast_head":"\nSeparation (or, some big changes ahead for our family) - PilgrimSteps<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.janaremy.com\/pilgrimsteps\/2010\/11\/30\/separation-or-some-big-changes-ahead-for-our-family\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Separation (or, some big changes ahead for our family) - PilgrimSteps\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"One of my favorite parts of my garden was my climbing rose.\u00a0 I’d dug this plant out of the flowerbed in our old apartment.\u00a0 The gardeners kept whacking the rose to the ground (it wasn’t part of the landscaping) and it just kept growing back.\u00a0 Whack-grow-whack-grow.\u00a0 Finally one day I took a trowel and dug […]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.janaremy.com\/pilgrimsteps\/2010\/11\/30\/separation-or-some-big-changes-ahead-for-our-family\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"PilgrimSteps\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2010-11-30T15:00:17+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"janaremy@gmail.com\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"janaremy@gmail.com\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.janaremy.com\\\/pilgrimsteps\\\/2010\\\/11\\\/30\\\/separation-or-some-big-changes-ahead-for-our-family\\\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.janaremy.com\\\/pilgrimsteps\\\/2010\\\/11\\\/30\\\/separation-or-some-big-changes-ahead-for-our-family\\\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"janaremy@gmail.com\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.janaremy.com\\\/pilgrimsteps\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/48edf1696489416085bd652eed4f53c9\"},\"headline\":\"Separation (or, some big changes ahead for our family)\",\"datePublished\":\"2010-11-30T15:00:17+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.janaremy.com\\\/pilgrimsteps\\\/2010\\\/11\\\/30\\\/separation-or-some-big-changes-ahead-for-our-family\\\/\"},\"wordCount\":832,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.janaremy.com\\\/pilgrimsteps\\\/2010\\\/11\\\/30\\\/separation-or-some-big-changes-ahead-for-our-family\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"\",\"articleSection\":[\"garden\",\"John\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.janaremy.com\\\/pilgrimsteps\\\/2010\\\/11\\\/30\\\/separation-or-some-big-changes-ahead-for-our-family\\\/\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.janaremy.com\\\/pilgrimsteps\\\/2010\\\/11\\\/30\\\/separation-or-some-big-changes-ahead-for-our-family\\\/\",\"name\":\"Separation (or, some big changes ahead for our family) - 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