The Work Beneath the Work

The Papermaker's Workshop, Bevagna, Italy

It's been raining off and on for weeks.

I finally wandered into the garden today after a few days away, unsure of what I would find. Client work has kept me busy lately, and somewhere between long production days, emails, deadlines, and life, I hadn't realized it had already been a week since I'd last walked the paths between the raised beds.

Everything was different.

The home garden

The cucumbers had climbed well beyond the trellis, their curling tendrils reaching up to the sky as though they had somewhere important to be. Bergamot had exploded into bloom, humming with bees that seemed not to notice me at all. The first poppies had opened. And my onions! My first attempt at growing them—stood taller and stronger than I'd expected. Even the tomatoes had taken on a life of their own.

Bergamont in the garden

And then there were the morning glories.

I never planted them. Volunteers, I suppose. Birds must have carried the seeds, dropping them into the pathways where they quietly took root. They're beautiful, their delicate blue flowers opening each morning as if they've always belonged there.

But I know better.

If I leave them, they'll eventually overtake everything else.

There's an old gardening saying that a weed is simply a plant growing where it isn't wanted. I've always liked that saying.

I love the morning glories.

I also know they cannot stay.

Gardening has a way of teaching difficult truths gently.

Not everything beautiful belongs everywhere.

Not every relationship, opportunity, or expectation can be given unlimited room to grow.

Standing there, I found myself thinking that everything is growing differently this year.

Nature, as always, has the final say.

The morning glories

The moment I stepped into the garden, something in me became quiet.

Not because there wasn't work to do.

There was plenty.

Weeds to pull. Tomatoes to tie. Dead blooms to prune. Paths disappearing beneath volunteer seedlings.

But it felt like a different kind of work.

Not the work my calendar asks of me.

The kind my hands remember.

The kind my spirit recognizes before my mind catches up.

I've spent much of this spring feeling a little anxious, though for a while I couldn't understand why.

Maybe I hadn't given myself enough room to wander.

Which felt strange because, objectively, it has been a fulfilling season.

My commercial work has continued to expand, bringing several opportunities that challenged me in all the right ways to include one of my largest projects to date. I also had the privilege of speaking with photography students at the University of Louisville and the Governor's School for the Arts, and I left both places reminded of the simple joy that curiosity can bring.

At home, there has been good news too. My husband was recently offered a promotion, and we've spent quiet evenings dreaming about about an adventure to take next summer.

And still...

I'd find myself walking past my studio, looking at the work from Umbria and my unfinished experimental pieces waiting patiently on the table, feeling as though I was disappointing old friends.

The Old Art of Saying Hello | Emulsion Lift Transfer

I kept telling myself it was because I missed working on it.

I hadn't missed “the working on it”.

I'd missed the life that inspires me and allows me to make it.

Reading without feeling guilty that I should be answering emails.

Writing without knowing whether the words would become anything.

Spending an afternoon making something just because.

Reading.

Writing.

Walking.

Making.

Repeat.

I've started wondering if these things have been mislabeled in my own life.

I've treated them like rewards for working hard enough.

But what if they aren't rewards?

What if they're the work beneath the work?

The quiet, unseen things that make everything else possible.

I think about the papermaker I met in Italy, stacking damp sheets one by one, knowing the finished page depended on countless quiet acts no one would ever really see.

The Papermaker's Workshop, Bevagna, Italy

test lift from The Papermaker’s Workshop

Lately I've been asking myself a question that has lingered longer than most.

What am I unwilling to sacrifice in order to become more successful?

It's a strange question because success rarely asks for everything at once.

It asks for an hour here.

A weekend there.

One more email before bed.

One more project.

One more opportunity.

And individually, none of them seem unreasonable. Until one day you realize you've stopped wandering through your own garden.

Or opening the book on your coffee table.

Or making work that belongs only to you.

Success isn't the problem.

I want to grow.

I want to make meaningful work.

I want to keep saying yes to projects that challenge me.

But I don't want growth to come at the expense of the very things that taught me how to see.

I've spent years believing the work was the thing I needed to protect.

The photographs.

The commissions.

The studio time.

I think I've had it backwards.

Maybe the life around the work is what needs protecting.

The marriage that steadies me.

The conversations with friends that stay with me.

The books that leave sentences etched into my mind long after I've closed them.

The music that reminds me there's more than one way to tell a story.

The garden that reminds me I don't control nearly as much as I think I do.

The afternoons that ask nothing of me except to pay attention.

Before I left the garden, I tried to remember why I hadn't been out there much lately.

Then I remembered. The rain.

It occurred to me that I'd been waiting for the right conditions to return to so many things lately.

More time.

Less work.

Better weather.

A quieter season.

The garden had never asked for perfect conditions.

It simply kept growing.

As I left the garden, I promised it that even if it was raining, I would go to it.

Not because the garden needs me.

But because I need it.