My morning rituals have shifted slightly this season. I still find myself moving from rooms to room opening the windows and letting the daylight in. But I save our patio doors for last because just beyond them is my little self made haven of a patio garden. 

I’ve pretty much always lived in cities (NYC, LA, and even DC for a stint), and the fact that there are parks and green spaces throughout plus my family of houseplants tided over my desire for my own green (or greener) space all these years. But in the midst of lockdowns last year a private sanctuary outside the walls of our apartment became a priority, so we moved.

At first out narrow patio was just a beige stuccoed trough hanging off the outside of our building. But over time with the addition of a couple chairs, some plants, and outdoor tiles it became an urban oasis. Each morning I open the curtains and from behind the glass spy on my plants, trying to identify and changes from the day before. Excited to find new growth or greet the little creatures scampering through the foliage. But before heading outside I put on water to boil and grind coffee beans, still lurking on the potted blooms scattered across the exterior wall, table, and floors. Eventually my morning pour over is ready and I can move on to my most exiting ritual of the day, watering.

Somehow watering my outdoor plants became a routine I love, despite being resistant to it at first. I have been used to weekly or less frequent watering schedules for my houseplants, and even those I held on loosely too. But the cottage style flowers in their terra-cotta planters are not patient enough to be watered on my schedule. If I skipped a day or two they would tell me in their depressed appearance, quickly dropping flowers. And the seeds I was patiently awaited to sprout would remain dormant. So I made it my duty to water them each morning before I treated myself to coffee. Its and intimate thing, watering in the still of the morning, getting to know how much each plant requires, how much sun they likely got the day prior based on how the soil looks and feels today. It’s meditative and slowing. And now I couldn’t imagine a better way prime myself before taking my morning coffee. Sitting quietly in front of bushes of grateful flowers and optimistic seedlings, satisfied that if nothing else happens today I cared for something outside myself but for myself.