We are on Day 4 of a teen mental meltdown and we are exhausted. The tears, the silence, the blind fear gripping her by the ankles, dragging her down. It takes every ounce of strength I have to hold onto her, pull her up and out, back into the light.

In about two weeks, the Home and Garden Television Network will be calling to tell me I’ve won their Dream House Sweepstakes and the people of Warren, VT are waiting with open arms.

I’m a 50 year old mom. Occasionally, I’m up for a good “whoa, this chick’s mess is about 1,000 degrees hotter than mine” show. This is how I found myself watching Netflix’s new series, “The Woman in the House Across the Street from the Girl in the Window”.

You know how when you travel somewhere you are constantly sizing up the people, trying to figure out if you could live there? Or at the very least, if you were suddenly struck with a burst appendix, would the locals rush to your side and comfort you or step over you and continue on down the sidewalk?

After 15.5 hours in a car eating nothing but soy crackers and grapes, you can imagine how excited I was to find out Boise is the farm-to-table mecca in the Pacific Northwest. Really sad I didn’t pack elastic waistband pants.

Lesson #3 of Nervous Breakdowns: Ignore your sick child.

I was born under a new moon and during a partial solar eclipse. The light and I have been in conversation my entire life. And we have many more things to discuss.

The first day of my freshman year of high school, I almost vomited because I’d heard about Freshmen Kill Day and was certain I’d come home with boogers in my hair.

Yesterday my husband discovered @mountainfeedandfarm. “They somehow knew you were coming and they made a store about you, ” he said. I was skeptical. Really? A whole store? When I had to hold back actual tears standing in the beekeeping section, I knew he was right.

Hard not to feel the sting of separation this holiday locked away from our families and friends. Usually I’d put out my grandmother’s cut glass olive dish, a tablecloth I stole from Mom and fill GG’s vintage Bacardi trifle dish to make them feel closer. But all of it, like ourselves, is locked away for another time.

We have come to the woods once again to recover, restore and find solace. Nature, that ever healing force, in this place fills us with spectacular light bouncing off of delicate leaves in transition. But once again, or maybe still, Nature Herself needs healing.

Because that's what happens in 2020. You scramble your way to a comfortable seat amongst the slippery rocks, the tide shifts, and you're left treading water and looking for land once again.

We have taken to the woods in search of magic. Or maybe to have magic find us.

But the true gift of my garden isn’t the food but the moments when I connect my loss or my win with the way the world works— experiencing the macrocosm in the microcosm.

When I found myself choking back sobs as Wilson the volleyball floated away on screen, I knew it was time.