The Naked Gardener
A Benefit of Living Alone?
Estimated reading time: 1 minute, 59 secondsThanks to my friend Deb, who is a master gardener, I’ve been able to transform my once barren Apartment 3B into a welcoming and green home. Deb expertly helped me choose and repot plants. Now, I proudly care for four self-watering plants and five others. Every Sunday, I spend time watering, misting, rotating, inspecting, and chatting with them. Recently, I’ve started tending to my plants before getting dressed on Sunday mornings. Living alone, I’ve become quite comfortable being a naked gardener.
In the time before my beloved wife’s passing, she lovingly tended to the plants in our home with her gifted green thumb. While I had the habit of overwatering, she had the magic touch to make the plants thrive. Our morning routine involved her first shower, allowing her to luxuriate in the warmth while I busied myself in the kitchen, catching up on the latest news. After her shower, she would water the plants in her underwear. I once playfully suggested that she tended to them in the nude, but she disagreed, stating that she couldn’t fathom anyone wanting to see her bare. Secretly, I often found the idea appealing, but I knew I had to tread carefully in expressing such thoughts.
To me, no pun intended, the natural flow of tasks led me to become the naked gardener. After my shower, I dried myself, did the laundry, and took care of other chores in my small home. It has always been the most efficient way to complete my Sunday morning routine.
I’ve lived for three-quarters of a century, and I’m confident I wouldn’t choose to be a naked gardener if I didn’t live alone. However, as the sole occupant of Apartment 3B, it has become my standard operating system for many months. Living alone may have some rare and unanticipated benefits, but loneliness is not one of them. In her novel “The Vaster Wilds,” Lauren Groff wrote about the complexity of mastering the daily activities of living alone. She focuses on a servant girl who escapes from a colonial settlement in the wilderness. Towards the end of her life, she asks an emotional question, “To be alone and surviving is not the same as being alive.” Hopefully, my gardening sans clothes will end one day, and I can, as Groff writes, find “a hand to hold, a face to love. Humans were never meant to live alone.”
I sometimes yearn for more from life than I have, but I also acknowledge that I have more than others. During my last conversation with my wife, she said she did not want me to be alone. "You are a good man and an excellent husband," she said. "You will be happier with someone than alone." Although I resisted, she was persistent. Now that I am alone, will I be content if I never find someone to love? Yes, but I know that Jan was right, and while I can live alone, I will always be less than entirely happy.
