Dear Mom,

I’ve been looking at your old journals again. I found an entry where you spoke about all the things you did during your day to keep your mind off your diagnosis. Particularly in the end after the tumor came back. One thing you mentioned was your garden. You referred to it as your ‘Therapy Room’. 

I can’t stop thinking about that term. Therapy room. I’ve been wondering what that term means exactly, what it could mean to me in my life and in the lives of my children, and what it must have meant to you.

So, what is a therapy room?

I would like to think it is a place or an action or even a state of mind that we can consider as therapy. And I am in no way saying it should replace therapy with a trained professional, which I’m actually looking to start doing soon and you probably should have done more often in your life, but I do think we could all benefit from having a designated therapy room. Something that belongs to us only. 

When I think back to your garden and all the years of your gardening you were never that excited about including your children in the process. I remember weeding with you as a kid, but I can only visualize it happening once. I think you wanted me to be interested in the process of gardening. To love having my hands in the soil as much as you did. But you weren’t that eager to share your room with me. That was your space. And I understand that. Bringing whiny, impatient, ungrateful kids into your room could have had the potential to ruin the joy of it. This leads me to concur that a therapy room is meant for one.

I assume that a therapy room to you was a way to disconnect with the stresses of your day-to-day life. Your chemotherapy. Your brain surgeries. Your financial burden of paying never-ending bills. Your discomfort. Your worries about your kids and grandkids and their futures. Your worries about my future without you in it. Your worries about dying. 

You had a lot to stress about, particularly in the end. And having a place to go where you could decompress and breathe fresh air and tend to living things had to feel therapeutic to you.

I wonder if the process of watching something grow and bringing something to life helped you during the moments when you were so hyperaware of your upcoming death. There must have been a time when you admitted to yourself that your death was creeping up. That your life was coming to a close. And maybe surrounding yourself with plants made you feel more alive.

Though, this line of thought leads me to more questions. You always loved gardening. I grew up with the most stunning gardens in our backyard. I still remember picking chives to chew on and later raspberries and strawberries. I have clear memories of standing next to sunflowers and corn stalks that were taller than me. Did you always feel more alive in your garden? Long before your diagnosis? Even back when we were kids? When was the first garden? Did you have your hands in the soil before Paul was born? Or did his birth set you off on your journey? Did his diagnosis of a twenty-year lifespan force you to look at your own life differently? To crave life differently? 

Was that ultimately your obsession with gardening? Or am I just projecting?

Either way, I know that gardening is not my therapy. I know that I am almost entirely incapable of keeping any plants alive. But I do recognize the significance of living things. I think my therapy room is the outdoors. My therapy room is Griffith Park in Los Angeles. The hiking trails I know so well. And I do think there is something therapeutic about being in nature that is quite similar to your use of gardening as therapy. Being surrounded by oxygen. By green. By life. 

For me it’s also about the specific trails in Los Angeles. The ones where I can look down at my beautiful city. I can breathe in the cleanest air around. I can take the same trail I know and discover a new angle, or I can take a turn and try a new section I’ve never traversed before. I can be all alone or with a friend or meet a new person who also loves these trails.

It’s also more than just the trails. It’s more than just the wilderness. It’s more than the living plants around me. It’s my own life. My own breath. My own movement. When I’m in motion. Climbing a hill or running down that same hill or stretching at the end, I am alive. I am connected to my own life and to my breath. I guess, in a way, it’s my reminder that life is really a journey towards death. We can’t escape it. There is no hiding. No avoiding. No way around the inevitable. So, my therapy room is the very place where I can be reminded that I am still alive. 

Similar to your therapy room, I love to take my kids with me on my hikes, but I need to go alone as well. I must experience the dirt on my shoes and the smell of fresh horse poop and the often too foggy to see view and the pretty clean but also kind of gross bathrooms and the great number of tourists congregating near the Observatory and the signs warning of possible rattlesnakes. I need to use all my senses and be in my head and decompress and take it all in without the sound of my kids complaining that their legs just can’t take them one step further. I want to watch the blackbirds circle above and the woodpeckers who are always around and the deer who show up only if it’s quiet enough without a kid begging for the bathroom that is now miles away when they assured me they didn’t have to go before we began our hike. I need to push myself to go longer or try a new and seemingly more challenging trail without worrying that at least one of my kids is going to walk too close to the edge. Even if they’re fine and they know what they’re doing because, at the end of the day they still walk like a drunk person, and I can’t trust they won’t trip themselves on their own foot and go off the side of the mountain.

For me, and probably for you as well, a therapy room is a place to relax. To not have any spiked hormones as I fear for the safety of my kids or wish my kids could settle down and listen to me. I don’t want to go to a place that is meant for my relaxation with people who can bring the worst out of me. And again, I will also take them with me. I love to share the trails with them. They do love hiking and being in nature. But I need to make sure to always carve out enough time for me to go at it alone. Because, ultimately, this therapy room of mine must be preserved. I must be able to go there when I need to work through a problem or breathe through a stress or even just feel closer to you. 

It’s interesting, as I think about it, I haven’t been in my therapy room for months. There was a period where I’d go hiking three days a week. I’d drop the kids off at school and drive straight to the trails to have my morning alone in nature. When I started to take my writing more seriously, I couldn’t afford to waste time by driving for six miles each way when I could go straight home and get work done. Maybe I need to reevaluate my day a bit. Maybe I need to prioritize my hikes. Maybe my therapy room is too important to miss for so long.

Or maybe it’s not the right therapy room for my current life. Perhaps I need to find a therapy room that is closer. 

Could my neighborhood be a sufficient replacement? 

Yesterday I took a walk alone in my neighborhood. I took my time. I paid attention to my surroundings. I half listened to a podcast while I worked through some ideas that have been circling my head the last few days. I was technically in nature. Not on a trail in a park, but I’m lucky enough to live in an area with tree lined streets and some of the very best landscaping in the city. I watched birds go by. People walking dogs. No fresh horse poop but more than enough dog poop to bring me back to the trails. It’s different, and not as enjoyable as my trails, but it’ll do.

Last night, Scotland was having a tough time. She was getting super frustrated with everything her brother did and most of my actions as well. Nothing was right. We baked together and she’d be visibly annoyed whenever she didn’t get her turn immediately. There were a handful of moments when she stomped off to her room to get away from us. Once our chocolate chip banana bread was done baking, and after we all had a slice, which wasn’t anywhere near quick enough for her, I sat down with my girl to talk. I asked her if there was something wrong. 

Whatever was bothering her, whichever frustrations were bubbling up within her and why, she couldn’t seem to put it into words. 

So, I told her about the therapy room concept. First, I had to explain what therapy is, also what a therapist is, and how we use that term in other ways. I told her that eating chocolate can feel like therapy to me. I told her that you, her beloved Grandma Janis, used a garden as a therapy room. I told her how the outdoors, walking in Griffith Park and our neighborhood, is mine. So, I asked her what her therapy room would be. She thought about it for a moment. Really sat with the question. Her answer was sitting outside sketching. So, I told her, next time she gets frustrated and needs to get away from us, she can grab her sketchpad and go to the balcony. 

Surely enough, about thirty minutes later, Idris did something to her that set her off. I don’t even remember what it was as it probably wasn’t much, and I reminded her of our talk. Scotland grabbed her paper and crayons and went to the balcony. She didn’t come in until it was time for dinner. She handed me this drawing, I’ve included it with this letter, of our hummingbird feeder. She said it was for me. And she said she felt better.

I asked Scotland this morning how her therapy room helped her feel better. She said she feels like she is meant to be outside. That she was born to be outside. That the outside is her home. This is how I feel as well. I feel at home outside. Calm in nature. At peace amongst the living plants and the wildlife. 

A therapy room can be a space for us to go to when we need a moment. It doesn’t have to be visited daily. And I think it’s important to take the pressure off of myself to go to my room often. It’s not a place I must visit as a preventative measure. It’s a place to go when needed. When I’ve had a bad day. When I’m extra worried or stressed about children or finances. When I’m worried about the world or family. During the most challenging of moments. I will walk outside. And if I’m alone with my kids, perhaps I will take a page from Scotland’s book and go out to our balcony to sketch the beautiful nature that surrounds our apartment. I will breathe in the fresh air and look out at the trees, because being in nature in any capacity is my therapy. 

I love you, Mom.

Love,

Rachel