Composting & Composing A Life
being in the now as pages turn & stuff disintegrates
Welcome to 2024!
During my two weeks of rest and ‘dormancy’ (with a few family celebrations thrown in) I’ve been thinking about this idea of composting and composing a life and how these two words invite reflection on the power of now.1
When I visited my Garden Library earlier today, a new page had literally been turned on one of the books. “Call Me Thine Own” appeared where “Evening Star” had been.
Was it the wind, a squirrel or one of my children exploring? Does it matter? The new page, like the new year, is fresh, but still very much connected to the same book with wrinkled and brown edges.
The colors and tones of the season, it seems.
In “Quiet Time - Chai” leaves and cinnamon curl together and like the pages of this music book, quietly decompose.
For me, it’s impossible to not think about the past, present and future this time of year.
Composting is about decomposition in the present, whether discarded food scraps or pages in a book.
Composing is about current creation for future consumption, whether a piece of music or a photograph.
What happens when composting and composing come together?
I compose a photograph to share with you, knowing that the objects depicted are in the process of ongoing transformation.
What you see is now a relic from the recent past.
Yikes, this feels way more philosophical than I intended, but there we are.
In 2024, my husband and I will be moving to a smaller house in a different state (just a few miles away across the Connecticut River in Vermont). It will be a slow process, but will involve processing (composting) our more than two decades in our current home and garden.
Simultaneously, we will be fixing up our new place, literally composing this next stage in our lives (we’re 58 and 59).
I have never been more conscious of the present, this moment and no other, when that leaf landed on top of a book weeks ago but is now integrated with a displaced binding and part of another piece of music or when a squirrel (or chipmunk or bird or skunk) sat on the top of a stump just a few feet away and left these seeds.
I compose these micro-dramas into images for you to experience, just as I have been composing photographs of compost for years.
Composers compose music; Writers compose narratives; Photographers compose images; Painters compose paintings.
Each of these creative acts is a way to make meaning, share a story, or celebrate beauty.
None can be created without all that has been composted in a person’s life leading up to that moment.
The fact that I see these kaleidoscopes of shapes and color in the garden or compost pile comes from years of looking down…My mother trained me to find ‘treasure’ at the ‘sea glass beach’ we visited when I was a child.
In fact, I returned to this beach in 2022, and did what I was taught. Only instead of glorious blue and green sea glass, I found green twine, a blue plastic chip and a used rubber glove.
The adventures of the past transformed into the realities of the present, which I am now processing (composting) as I compose this narrative about words and time and the evolution of self.
Because what I understand now is that the treasure I found was not the blue sea glass, but a connection to place and a way to cultivate a relationship to place by looking closely at the very ground beneath my feet…This skill, which has served me well for decades, continues to provide ballast in times of change.
Marbling packaging decomposing among the books in the Garden Library or the rippling page from one of those books are also ‘compost compositions,’ like those I first created within my compost pile, but these are different. They are images composed of decomposing matter, composting what was, so that something else may emerge.
My shadow falls on part of my daughter’s portrait, an image she can’t stand not just because she didn’t feel well when it was created, but also because it depicts a difficult and awkward period in her life. I’m not sure what we are going to do with this portrait when we move.
Like so many other objects from our collective past, my family and I are going to compost what we can as we compose our futures. It’s not going to be easy. I, for one, adore this portrait because my heart goes out to that beautiful and vulnerable child who I love with all my heart and who represents in the abstract every young girl, including myself, made to pose when she would rather have been doing something else.
But what could be more exciting that sharing this space and time with you?
If you are in the process of composting stuff from the past as you compose your future, please share your experiences in the comments section (click this button…if you hit reply to this e-mail, I’ll never see your lovely words).
Change can be daunting, but also incredibly inspiring. I suppose that’s why I love hanging out at this confluence of compost, climate and creativity - - it’s a magical place to nourish and be nourished. If you’d like to share all that transpires here, please let your friends know about 13 Tons of Love!
As always, thank you for being you and for being here with me!
With cheers and gratitude,
Lyn
I hope you had a safe and fulfilling Winter Solstice and New Years. It’s wonderful to be back.
I really enjoy the exploration of composting and composing. I hope your move will go well, but I'm worried about your compost piles - will the new owners take care of them? Will you have to start fresh in the new house? It took years to build those beautiful piles!
So beautifully said!!
I hope you love your home in Vermont but don’t envy the work of moving...