Existing, persisting, and maybe a loci of control

Portrait of a Currant Plant Post Nutrition Label Content Type: Text Read Time: 8 min Topics: Gardening, Resilience Sensitive: Implied depression "Prune to the outward-facing bud." — Every pruning guide ever written, as if we all agree on which way is out. I have never been vivacious. I have been persistent, which is a different animal entirely. Something that exists in a room rather than fills it. Furniture that has outlasted several owners and no longer matches anything; certainly comfortable, definitely odd. The world isn't helping with that, for sure, but I think I have a good grasp of my locus of control. The walls of the house. The fence around the garden. The border around the beds. I have control there. I can effect change1 with my favorite Felco shears or at least affect the illusion of it. They are an outward manifestation of my locus. Head to hand, hand to shears, shears to tree with a satisfying snipping. The branch falls and I pretend I meant it. Summer means the orchard…