The Mail

Letters respond to Rebecca Mead’s article about the therapeutic power of gardening and Jennifer Gonnerman’s profile of a New York City bus driver navigating the coronavirus.

Harvesting Hope

I could not agree more with Rebecca Mead’s lovely article about the therapeutic benefits of having one’s hands in the soil (“Nature and Nurture,” August 24th). Her words brought back memories from fifteen years ago, when I was taking part in a development project in an aspiring eco-village in South Africa. The facilities were rented every few weeks to a Buddhist group that brought victims of the violence in Zimbabwe to the village for workshops and meditation sessions. On their afternoon breaks, these adults, many of whom had suffered rape, loss of livelihood, hunger, and torture, came to life as they helped clear new garden beds. As Mead notes, “Gardening can be especially helpful for people suffering from P.T.S.D.,” and that seemed to be the case for these refugees. I will never forget seeing them wielding their hoes and pickaxes, singing and laughing, as if they had suddenly been brought back home. I first heard the achingly beautiful song “Silang Mabele,” by Vusi Mahlasela, during that time. Not knowing enough Setswana to understand the lyrics fully, I believed it was a love song. Years later, I learned that it was a call to end poverty—a love song of a different sort. I’m grateful to Mead for the reminder of how close to us a source of healing can be.

Erika Nelson
Oxford, Ohio

As a psychoanalyst immersed in gardening, I found Mead’s piece to be enchanting and thought-provoking. I liked her mention of Donald Winnicott’s theory of “transitional” spaces, and also Sue Stuart-Smith’s suggestion that a garden can be “a Winnicottian ‘in-between.’ ” My own garden exemplifies the spatial concept of a transition from enclosure to freedom, proceeding from a cottage garden hugging the house to a woodland garden near the perimeter of the property, where I like to preserve the illusion of wild space beyond. During the past forty-plus years, I have observed an unfortunate turn toward gardening as decorating: modern interior spaces, increasingly sterile and stripped of personality, seem to be transplanted outside, with an emphasis on fostering order, rather than on the playful randomness that might otherwise emerge. Similarly, psychoanalysis seeks to cultivate curiosity about the symptoms that a patient is experiencing, as opposed to pulling out symptomatic “weeds” by means of an imposed behavioral regime. I consider my garden and my professional career to be spaces of spontaneous emergence; I have learned to resist my urge to control my surroundings, and instead strive to maintain an attitude of tolerance, patience, and, above all, wonder and appreciation.

Elaine P. Zickler
Moorestown, N.J.

Ode to a Hero

I belong to a group of retirees meeting weekly (now via Zoom) to discuss articles from the previous week’s New Yorker. We have valued the many pieces on health-care providers throughout this pandemic, but we especially appreciated Jennifer Gonnerman’s profile of Terence A. Layne, a New York City bus driver (“Survival Story,” August 31st). Gonnerman reveals Layne’s complexity and also his nobility, telling us about his musician father, his time spent with the Nation of Islam, his stints in prison, the compassion he shows to his passengers and his co-workers, and his humane poetry. The respect with which she treats her subject made this piece an appropriate topic for our Labor Day discussion: it shines a light on the trials and triumphs of the ordinary working people whom many of us often take for granted, in spite of the necessary, even heroic, roles they play in our daily lives.

Miriam Burt
Green Valley, Ariz.

Letters should be sent with the writer’s name, address, and daytime phone number via e-mail to themail@newyorker.com. Letters may be edited for length and clarity, and may be published in any medium. We regret that owing to the volume of correspondence we cannot reply to every letter.