Transplanting - The Little French Bistro

Transplanting - Art journal
mixed media

If you are a gardner like me, you know that every once in a while you must pull up a plant and move it. Early in my gardening career I needed to learn how to pair a plant with its sun needs. Sure the nursery is kind enough to give you a plant stake in the pot to help with placement but what do they really mean by part sun/part shade or full sun. Is that spot in your yard which gets some shade really partial shade or not? It is only by getting to know your yard do you discover how to nurture your garden. Kind of like your own soul.

But things change, nothing stays the same and that is true of your garden and soul. Trees grow and cast new patterns of shade. Soil needs to be amended. Plants grow larger and need to be pruned and moved about. The same happens to us, we change, we grow, we stagnate, we allow fear to overwhelm us, and the next thing - if we are lucky enough - we find ourselves desperate for change, and that's where Marianne of Nina George's The Little French Bistro finds herself.

Marianne is a sixty year old, German woman who finds herself in Paris the famous place of light, love, art, food and she is desperate to rid herself of her husband and her old way of life - desperate enough to throw herself off a bridge and into the Seine hoping to end her misery. She is furious when a homeless man witnesses her suicide attempt and jumps in to save her. A night in a psychiatric hospital, one counseling session with a doctor, finds Marianne stealing a painted tile from a nurse's desk, on which is depicted a scene of a French port where she has decided to travel in order to end her life. SPOILER ALERT - She doesn't succeed.

Marianne, however, does succeed in finding herself. The lesson here is that we can begin the search for our inner beauty, for our passion in life through work that brings joy, we can make like minded friends, we can find love and sexuality, at any time whether it be our twenties, forties, or sixties. It's never too late. Better yet it is important to start sooner rather than later. The pull of our old ways of thinking, that miserable stinking thinking, is strong. Even Marianne is fooled and trapped by it when her husband comes to find her. Luckily her internal sense that her soul is dying in this man's presence and that she doesn't want to experience that for a day longer sends her fleeing from him once more.

What is it in my life that makes me feel dead inside? For that is a clear sign that life needs changing. And like a plant or a Marianne (I spell my name with a y by the way - coincidence? I wonder.), I can be transplanted. Dig one's self up out of the soil carefully not to damage roots, shake free those roots so that they will be free to absorb water and nutrients from its new location. Perhaps there is some pruning to be done to encourage new growth. Maybe some extra babying with frequent waterings and a shot of good fertilizer. Then that plant or person can stretch out their roots and become a new member of the garden community, playing a key role that can only be filled by them.