architects and gardeners
“Gardening teaches a different rhythm”,
says, “It asks for attention, for trust in what cannot be hurried.” It’s kindness and patience and longsuffering. “It reminds [us] to nurture, to listen, to celebrate small beginnings.” It’s a process that bears all things. Believes all things. Hopes endlessly. Endures everything, and remains ever humble, accepting, and welcoming.It reminds me of a distinction George R.R. Martin makes regarding writers. He says that there are two kinds, two types, two varieties. There are architects, and there are gardeners.
“The architect plans everything in advance”, Martin says, “draws up [a] blueprint...knows where the plumbing is going to run”, knows all the exacting details before beginning. The gardener, on the other hand, has a notion, an idea, digs a hole and starts planting, leaves almost everything to the living chance that permeates the ground of things that grow with unrevealed agency.
I think it applies to not only writing and writers, but to every kind of maker, to every form creativity. There are architects and there are gardeners.
But, it’s important to consider that they’re not antonyms or antagonisms. They are not in conflict or opposition, nor are they found at enmity. In fact, Martin says that all makers are always a mixture of the two. It’s simply a question of which direction you lean.
As much as I’d like to say I’m a gardener, I know that I’m an example of the hybridity. I cultivate my materials like a garden and then I convene them like architecture.
For most of my process I’m looking for ways to get lost. To wander into pathless places. Into the thick density of the ambiguity and the uncertainty. I’m aiming to gather discoveries; seeds and saplings and cuttings. The fragments of the mystery I can touch and hold and see.
I retrace my steps back home again, and I plant meticulously. Watching closely. Waiting to see what roots will find their strength. For what strange moments of serendipity will blossom and bloom and reach.
I collect what comes to life and I assemble it together carefully. Precisely. Methodically. I measure. I mark. I repeat. Not just twice but three, four, five, six times if necessary, before cutting. I make a multiplicity of micro-adjustments to get everything just so and only when I’m satisfied do I glue.
There are architects and there are gardeners, may you be blessed enough to discover the ways in which both are within you.
May you build what stands the test of time, and may you stand within the tender patience of the time it takes grow.
In case no one’s told you today, I love you with all my everything.
***special thanks to and for inspiring this writing.
I love how you connect gardening not just to the rhythms of nature, but to the creative process itself — that blend of tending, waiting, and trusting in what will grow. The architect/gardener metaphor really lands for me, too. It’s freeing to realize we don’t have to pick a side; making anything meaningful seems to require both the careful planning of architecture and the open wonder of gardening. Your words are a reminder to allow for serendipity and precision, patience and intention — all at once. Thank you for naming that complexity with such grace.
I loved this peek into your process! And also this paragraph…absolutely stunning. It resonates so deeply:
“For most of my process I’m looking for ways to get lost. To wander into pathless places. Into the thick density of the ambiguity and the uncertainty. I’m aiming to gather discoveries; seeds and saplings and cuttings. The fragments of the mystery I can touch and hold and see.”