My doctor’s office uses a Social Determinants of Health (SDOH) screening tool at regular checkups. It takes me by surprise every time. The questionnaire is meant to discover whether a patient is living in an unsafe environment, whether in their living conditions or relationships. Circling “no” and “never true” to statements like, “you worry that in the next two months you may not have stable housing,” or “the food you bought didn’t last and you didn’t have money to get more” gives me an overwhelming feeling of gratitude. The question, “How often does anyone cause you physical harm,... insult you,... scream or curse at you?” fills me with a deep compassion for others whose answers are “yes” and “often.” I am aware that people are living on the razor’s edge between safety and harm, enough to get by and not, but I don’t imagine them seated next to me in the wealthy suburban hospital where I see my doctor.

Driving to an appointment the other day, I caught an old favorite on the radio, REM’s “It’s the End of the World as We Know It.” Never mind that it was playing on the oldies station, that song is a banger. It’s nearly impossible to get all the lyrics of the verses, a tongue twister litany of feelings and observations that fly by at breakneck speed. But the chorus? Well, that’s totally sing-able, right up there with the best pop earworms. You can hardly sing the hook in the chorus, “and I feel fine,” without a smile on your face and at the top of your lungs if you’re in the car by yourself.

Over the past decade, I’ve written twice about my efforts to make and tend a garden. I say “efforts” because as everyone who keeps a garden knows it is an effortful endeavor and at least for me, about a 70/30 proposition of success to failure. Still I decided to try and become a gardener one fall almost 11 years ago, as a way to honor my Mom and truthfully, as an expression of my very fresh grief. What started as a solitary and frustrating practice has turned into something far more communal than I could have imagined.