There’s something about tending a struggling garden that puts things in perspective.

This year, my garden has weathered everything. Heatwaves that scorched leaves to paper, storms that flattened stems, bunnies that nibbled seedlings down to nothing, red spider mites that clustered like dark thoughts, fungus creeping through the soil, nutrients leaching away until everything yellowed and faded. There were moments I thought nothing would make it. Some didn’t. I learned to grieve what couldn’t be saved and keep tending what remained.

But the survivors are coming back. My sugar snap peas were barely clinging to life a month ago, thin and trembling. Now they’re unfurling new tendrils, reaching upward, beginning to fruit.

Watching them recover has made me think about roots I didn’t know ran so deep.

My grandparents were farmers and teachers in the mountains of Fujian province. They survived famine and somehow raised seven children, children scattered like seeds across relatives’ homes because there wasn’t room for everyone under one roof. My parents grew up in that village and clawed their way toward a different life through education, through sheer will, until they made it to the city. Then they planted me in American soil. I was 14, alone in an LA apartment they rented from across the ocean. They sent money, but I tended to everything else myself. A seedling transplanted mid-season, learning to grow in an entirely foreign climate.

Three generations. A few decades. Each of us uprooted and replanted somewhere we didn’t recognize.

Sometimes I look at what they endured and feel small. Why do I carry so much self-doubt, so much anxiety when things go wrong? I survived at 14 in a country I didn’t know. Wasn’t that enough? Why can’t I be as tough as they were? Maybe it was something about being closer to the earth, a farmers’ understanding that hardship is just weather, just seasons, just part of the cycle.

But then I return to my garden, and I see it differently.

My grandparents knew Fujian’s soil, its rhythms, its storms. My parents learned to navigate the path from village to city within the landscape they were born into. I’m learning to grow in yet another climate entirely. New soil, new seasons, new pests I’ve never encountered. The struggles shift with each generation: famine and scattered families, then the grinding journey from rural to urban, then a teenager alone in a strange land, and now these quieter invasions. Anxiety, doubt, the fear of not being enough.

But struggle is struggle. Survival is survival. And I am still here, still growing.

Resilience isn’t about never bending. It’s about weathering what comes, season after season, and trusting that recovery happens in its own time. It’s about offering myself the same patience I give my struggling plants. The same grace my grandparents must have whispered to themselves when crops failed, when seven mouths needed feeding and there was barely enough. The same grace I needed at 14, learning which way to grow toward light in unfamiliar air.

The farmers’ spirit isn’t just toughness. It’s patience. It’s the belief that roots go deeper than what you can see, that growth happens underground long before anything turns green. It’s the willingness to plant again after everything dies. My anxiety isn’t weakness. It’s just another way of caring deeply about what I’m cultivating, about the ground they cleared so I could grow here.

Sometimes you just need to let nature take its course. Trust the roots. Trust the season. Trust that you’re planted deeper than you know.

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相信根系

照料一座挣扎求生的花园，总能让人看清许多事情。

这一年，我的花园历经磨难——热浪将叶片炙成薄纸，暴雨摧折了茎秆，兔群啃噬幼苗至无，红蜘蛛如晦暗心事般密布枝头，真菌在土壤深处蔓延，养分渐渐流失，直到一切都褪成枯黄。曾有些时刻，我以为不会再有什么能活下来。确实有些没能活下来。我学会了哀悼那些无法挽回的，继续守护那些尚存的。

但那些幸存者呢？它们正在复苏。一个月前，我的荷兰豆还奄奄一息，纤弱颤抖。如今它们舒展新生的卷须，向上攀援，竟已开始结果。

看着它们渐渐恢复，让我思索起韧性这件事——思索那些我不曾察觉却早已深扎的根系。

我的祖父母是福建山区的农人和教师。他们度过饥荒，抚养七个孩子长大——那些孩子像种子般散落在各家亲戚的屋檐下，因为自家的屋顶容不下所有人。我的父母在那个村庄长大，凭借教育和意志，一步步走向城市。而后他们将我种在美国的土地上。十四岁那年，我独居洛杉矶，住在他们从大洋彼岸租来的公寓里。他们寄来生活费，但其余的一切都要我独自照料——一株在生长途中被移栽的幼苗，在全然陌生的气候里学习如何生存。

三代人，数十年。我们每个人都被连根拔起，重新植入陌生的土地。

有时我凝视他们经历过的一切，会感到自己渺小。为何我背负如此多的自我怀疑，如此深的焦虑？我十四岁便在异国独自生活——这还不够吗？为何我无法像他们那般坚韧？或许是因为他们更接近大地，拥有农人的领悟——苦难不过是天气，是季节，是循环的一部分。

但当我回到花园，我看见了别的东西。我的祖父母熟知福建的土壤，它的韵律，它的风暴。我的父母学会了在他们诞生的土地上，从乡村通往城市的路径。而我在这里，学习在截然不同的气候中生长——新的土壤，新的季节，从未遇见的病虫害。每一代人面对的挑战都在演变：饥荒与离散的家庭，然后是从乡村到城市的艰辛跋涉，然后是一个孤身异乡的少年，而今是这些更为隐匿的侵扰——焦虑、怀疑、对自己不够好的恐惧。

但挣扎终是挣扎，生存即是生存。而我仍在这里，仍在生长。

韧性不是从不弯折，而是经受一季又一季的风霜，相信复苏会在它自己的时辰降临。是给予自己如同给予那些挣扎植物般的耐心——如同我的祖父母在庄稼歉收时，在七张嘴需要喂养而几乎弹尽粮绝时，必定对自己低语过的那种宽慰。如同我十四岁时所需要的那种温柔，在陌生的空气里摸索该朝哪个方向寻找光明。

农人的精神不仅是坚韧，更是耐心。是相信根系比可见之处更深，相信生长早在你看见新绿之前便已在地下静静发生。是在万物凋零后仍愿再次播种。我的焦虑并非软弱——它只是另一种深切关怀的方式，关怀我正培育的一切，铭记他们开垦出的土地，让我得以在此生根。

有时你只需顺应自然的节奏。相信根系，相信季节，相信你扎根之深，远超你所知晓。