Going to Church

Picture it - Christmas 2018.

The Minnesota Landscape Arboretum has winter Christmas light displays. I've been to the Arboretum like once before this. My family was in town, we wanted to go buy apples, we were sticker shocked by how much it cost per person. Didn't stop to get a map, got confused by 3-mile drive and were like, That's it huh? It was lackluster. We did stop at the prairie because that's my Dad's jam. It was nice, but we had no idea what all was there.

So in December 2018 remembering the sticker shock of the earlier trip, I say to myself...well, I want to bring my friend and her husband -- "hell, I should just get an annual pass. Two more trips of just Gabe and I would pay for it". We go to the lights display. I am charmed, and my midwestern soul is soothed knowing, it's a bargain for the unlimited trips I am going to take come spring/summer/fall.

Cut to August 2019 when I realize I have this damn arb card and I have not made back my money yet. SCANDAL!

So Gabe and I go, just the two of us. We get a map. We wander around the buildings and drive out to the prairie. It's beautiful. We are hooked.

Our first official trip to the ARB not in the dead of winter. We have been missing out.

We start going every weekend. Sometimes we even go during the week. I'm making back my money! The more I go the better the deal! But it's slowly becoming all we think about.

We turn to each other frequently and say, "Hey if the weather is nice..."

"Do you wanna go to the ARB?!" the other would invariably finish.

Sometimes even when the weather is not nice, we still go. It's less crowded, and on overcast days sometimes the lighting is better for pictures.

Every time we go there is something new in bloom. We discover a different garden, a new walking path, a different biome. At this point, we are kicking ourselves for missing spring and early summer, but we console ourselves by luxuriating in the dahlia gardens, the hosta glade, the hydrangea test gardens, and discovering bogs are cool as hell.

Suddenly it has become our routine.

We discover if we go Sunday morning, early - it's quiet. We're sometimes the first people in. We take in some sights, pick a spot that sounds interesting or is a previous favorite.  Once the crowds start to thicken up, we take off. We notice that the traffic is cut off as a large church lets out usually as we are leaving. We start taking to calling the Arboretum church.

Our new shorthand is, "Should we go to church this weekend?"

In October of 2019, I take my first trip to NYC. I am by myself. It is loud - always. It is full of people. Tourists and New Yorkers who are fed up with tourists. It's too much for me. When Gabe picks me up at the airport I ask him to drive me to church. We sit under some maple trees and my pulse slows. I breathe deeper than I normally do.

Sorry, Central Park - this is my happy place.

We are now considering ourselves fledgling vegetation enthusiasts. Church has inspired me to put out bird feeders and try and draw in more birds. Church inspired Gabe to buy some native wildflower seeds and spread them in our back property. We'll never be able to recreate what the Arboretum does, but it has for sure given me a new appreciation for nature, and we are going to attempt to do some landscaping in our own little patch of earth and see how we do.

In the meantime, I re-upped my membership, and can't wait to see what the Sunday services are like at Church this spring.