What I Learned from Gardening with My Abuser
‘Survival gardening’ could be the stepping stone to victory for victims of quarantined domestic violence
Speak to a flower sweetly and it will grow. Speak to a flower callously and it will still grow, just in different ways.
I know this. I’ve been that flower.
It’s amazing how plants perform, accommodate, and change. I had quickly grown accustomed to my husband’s stomping around the house, his critical raging lectures, the pouring of love paired with vicious neglect.
This was a cycle I’d come to know in the domestic violence community as “idealize, devalue, discard.” Before I honed these words, I leaned on the language of gardening to pull me through.
Now, our country is fighting a destructive non-human enemy, and as many as one in four women and one in nine men are quarantined with their abusers. Not everyone is safe at home. Some are fighting a secret war within.
For all of us, this is World War Virus. Serving as “soldiers of the soil” at home, our elders won World Wars I and II by planting victory gardens. We can do the same.
A garden gifts the hungry food, and it gifts the trapped a taste of freedom. You are still free to grow from within, from a yard, balcony, or windowsill. For victims of abuse, gardening could be the stepping stone to victory.
My abuser was my rock, I had believed. But when the purely psychological mind-bending beatings had cracked our foundation, I grasped the steadfast seasons. I found my independence by self-sustaining our food supply. Each can of tomato sauce started small. I sowed every seed safe inside from the crass winds of March. I watered the seedlings drop by drop. Come April, I gifted them a gentle brew of fertilizer. All this happened in the basement where he would howl at me for not growing fast enough.
Plants, like people, take time. Young seedlings require a hardening-off period. They need to be transitioned gently from indoors to outdoor shade, to part sun, to full. Prior to planting, I always let one young bloom weather a storm; if it survives, it will thrive later.
I know this. I am that flower.
Weeks prior to the separation, my husband and I found rhythm in the garden. He shoveled and I raked tons of mushroom soil. He built the beds until we no longer shared one, and as a final gesture, he crafted a trellis for fast-growing pole beans and wound the rope to force the planks together. This served as a reminder of what we were — bound for a season. Too tightly.
A pair of trees, Yoshino Cherry and Forest Pansy Redbud, stood in the front yard. They were asymmetrical from the start, my husband having picked the cherry and I the redbud. Every summer night, I’d run the hose for both. Come Spring, the cherry’s lush white flowers put on a timely show for our neighbors. An array of my tangled pink, lilac, and yellow phlox struggled to weave a cohesive carpet at its feet. At least they tried. The redbud had little to offer, her stems still brittle from winter, settling on dormancy for fear of spring. He wanted “her” out. She paled in comparison to the cherry.
According to my husband, I paled in comparison to him.
One fine May day, the redbud proved him wrong. She heard my cries; her buds burst, revealing royal fuchsia flowers to brighten the shade that haunted our Cape Cod home. All along, she was just a late bloomer.
This redbud tree gave me the courage to abandon my abuser. I thought: If she can prove him wrong, so can I.
Before the peonies could sing, before the irises could open, and as the roses had only begun to bud, I bolted. Perhaps these perennials bloomed just as I turned my head away from theirs. I like to think that all my little girls let their petals catch a spring breeze, dusting the road behind my tires as I fled.
I left my survival garden in June. I didn’t leave my garden dead or dormant. I didn’t leave my garden in its prime. I left it as I had begun the marriage — green and budding, innocent and hopeful.
Two years later, only my thumb is green. I have re-rooted in Bethlehem, where I care for herbs and greens on my windowsill and shady ornamentals in my apartment courtyard. Across the bridge, I plant pansies and raspberries at CoWork 414, and twenty minutes away is my communal refuge at the NCC East 40 where I harvest food and flowers.
So as the coronavirus escalates in Pennsylvania, I can count on my plants. But the local grocery stores have become sparse, and we have learned which businesses are life-sustaining. Garden centers did not make the first cut.
This dug a hole in the heart I thought was healed. Garden centers had been essential to maintaining the strength I needed to divorce my emotionally abusive husband. As a whole, these businesses not only sustain life, they birth new life. Imagining all those seedlings watered until they would fill out their pots and need new homes, I felt our community robbed of the greatest opportunity. If the centers could have released the fruits of their labor to the public, we could be sustaining our food supply — faster.
Countless friends have pleaded for gardening advice. They often object, “But I don’t have a green thumb like you.”
When I was young and green, I also knew nothing of the garden except its mysterious beauty. A thriving space starts simply with seeds, soil, and sun. The true mystery runs deeper. You need to be willing to embrace trial and error — a process that forced me to grow in my marriage and on my own.
My suburban plot during the marriage was my survival garden. I now consider all my current plots victory gardens, some mature into bigger victories, others stay small. On May Day 2020, as the redbuds bloom, so do I. Able to grow food for myself and my family, I can also empower others to do the same. Quarantined with my cat in a small apartment is a bit lonely, but I am grateful to have created a healthy environment away from the infectious toxins of the virus and the violence too many people are facing today.
If you are quarantined with your abuser, plant a garden. Sustain your sanity. Save your life and birth a new one. Rise up, Seedlings. Your health is in your hands.
He never hit me. I am a survivor of emotional abuse. Non-physical violence IS violence. “If you feel like you may be unsafe with your partner or want to develop a safety plan,” the National Domestic Violence Hotline is available 24/7/365. To reach out to an advocate, call 1–800–799–7233, TTY 1–800–787–3224, or chat online at http://thehotline.org.
When I share that my ex abused me and someone replies: “You’re forgetting there are a lot of good men out there. Was it really abuse?” I hear this from myself. I don’t need to hear it from others. I know they mean well. I want to learn to respond with more understanding: Try asking about the pain, listening to the lessons I learned, and if you can, donate to a cause for healing and empowerment. Then I’d love help finding love.
