Finding the Imagination to Face the Darkness: Saving Michelle’s Garden

By Bonnie Cretti

So it was that Wednesday morning, the morning after the unthinkable possibility became the unthinkable reality, the morning after a short night of tossing and turning and checking the phone to see if, by any slim chance, the verdict had changed. It hadn’t.

That very special Wednesday morning my hardly-functioning brain began to scream: “What about the Supreme Court? What about Roe v. Wade? What about the Affordable Care Act? What about civility, diplomacy, tolerance, and inclusion?”

Powerlessness was joining incredulity that wretched morning. But then it got worse … or maybe better. I literally sat up in bed and howled “And what about Michelle’s garden?!” Now here was an issue that seemed a whole lot more concrete.

That is how the Save Michelle’s Garden project was born.

Save Michelle’s Garden is a budding grassroots organization born in Carbondale, Colorado. Its members love, have, or appreciate both human-made gardens and Mother Nature’s natural ones. We want our voices heard as far as we can spread them. Women are the experts in both old-fashioned networking as well as in the new realm of social media, so we have no doubt our voices will travel.

Michelle’s famous kitchen garden at the White House is our focus for two reasons.

First, Michelle’s Garden needs to be saved in and of itself. We know that it is under the auspices of the Park Service, and that the Burpee Seeds company has contributed a substantial amount to ensure its future. We, however, fear that these efforts might not be enough.

We want to loudly and continuously support the values her garden exemplifies for us: local organic gardening, the connection she made between good food and exercise, the ties she made to public education and children with her garden, and her advocacy of healthy female body images.

Secondly, Michelle’s Garden is a symbol to us. It is a tangible representation of the many accomplishments, values, and priorities that stand to literally be “plowed under” in the new administration. Supporting her garden is, for us, a way to support health care, education, diversity, climate change and the environment, women’s issues, and diplomacy — to name just few.

We have started our efforts in Carbondale where our gardens are silent and sleeping for the winter. We hope that our intentions will spread and, by the time spring gets here, we will all be blooming. We are doing our best to activate social media in our cause. We plan to be a presence at the Women’s March in Denver on January 21 with a brand new logo displayed on flags, banners, t-shirts and seed packets. We also will have a presence at Alice’s March for Women and Land in Carbondale on the same day starting at 9 a.m. (meeting at The Goat parking lot).

We are making videos of each of us standing in our gardens (or in the great outdoors) and proudly pronouncing them “Michelle’s Gardens.” Already we have gathered almost a hundred interested women on our contact list. We hope many others join us. We have contacted Michelle Obama as well, and await her interest.

If you’d like to join us, here is our contact information: Facebook Save Michelle’s Garden E-mail savemichellesgarden@gmail.com Twitter #savemichellesgarden.

 
Bonnie Cretti has lived in Redstone and Carbondale since 1977. Much of that time was spent teaching at Roaring Fork High School. She then had an independent college prep business. Now she bakes bread!