About how I walked past that fence for weeks certain my growing season was over, that I was, at sixty, finished ground — used up, retired, transplanted too late to take.

And about how wrong that was, how completely, gloriously wrong.

Because a life is not a career, though I spent thirty years confusing the two.

A life is the people you stand next to in the dark hauling water, the friend you make over a burst hose, the boy who shows up early, the old man who won’t let you quit, the neighbor who feeds you food you can’t name, the daughter you finally stop leaning on so you can start, again, simply to love.

None of it was planted on purpose.