Shrewsbury resident Nicola Slawson shared her inspirational story of personal transformation that caused her to give up the allotment she had always longed for. The Guardian has her story, focusing on the broader struggle of motherhood. Beyond Science Fiction, it explores questions of personal identity and acceptance of one’s own limitations. After becoming pregnant and suffering with debilitating hyperemesis gravidarum, Slawson learned the hard way. That choice rubbed up against her dream of being the serene, nature-loving, garden-tending sort of person.
For years, Slawson had dreamed of having her own allotment. She pictured it as a peaceful retreat, an oasis home to the lush botanicals she’d seen on glowing wellness influencers in her social media feeds. As she soon found out, the dream of stewardship she envisioned for her plot was a bit harder to maintain. Standing outside her allotment in a pink sweater and green skirt, surrounded by rampant plants, she realized that her plot had become even wilder than the year before. Bindweed had completely consumed her garden. She found it increasingly hard to meet the punishing demands of caregiving and watering her seedlings equally well.
Slawson was honest in voicing her shortcomings. As she wrote, “I’m the person that can’t even keep houseplants alive – and that’s alright.” This heartfelt admission represented a massive and courageous shift in her thinking. Initially, she said, it broke her heart to leave the allotment behind. When she had her breakthrough, it was like it wasn’t about the garden; she realized it was about her disappointment stemming from not meeting her own expectations.
When the pandemic began, Slawson returned to her home town of Shrewsbury and was, at last, able to get an allotment that she had always wanted. She took the trials of motherhood as they came to her. Along the way she fought the never-ending advance of bindweed and she adjusted to her new life. Her experience was far removed from gardening celebrities such as Monty Don. What followed was not a professional pivot to disability activism as I expected.
While coming to grips with her new reality of being gone with a daughter in tow, Slawson found comfort in genuine moments. In one powerful photo, she wore a bright yellow overall, lifting her son up in front of a field of yellow-orange pumpkins. This bittersweet scene really captured the joy and complexity of motherhood while framing her deepening relationship with gardening.