If you had asked me when I was
twelve-- or twenty-seven-- that I would end up aching to garden I would have
said you were nuts. Whenever I saw
my mom bent over in the yard pulling weeds I thought it looked like the most
abysmal waste of time. It seemed
monotonous and boring and I couldn’t imagine anything worse on a temperate
spring day than being outside in the fresh air, listening to the birds and mucking
about in the dirt. Lame-o.
Now
I’m like a cranky addict if I don’t get to my garden. With each passing day that my weeds—yes, they’re mine,
though not affectionately called so-- get shelved in favor of more pressing
duties, the low grade nagging turns into a deep yearning. I actually want to get out there. I want to put on my sloppy painting
clothes, knot my hair under a straw hat and head out to where no one knows I’m
coming and but every body knows my name.
In my garden, no one talks, especially the flowers. They have no personalities or names, no
wants or needs except for moisture and sun. They’re like beautiful models in clothing catalogues, there
to momentarily raise the aesthetic level of my world but make no demands on my
psyche.
Sometimes
I, however, talk to them. It’s a
very one-sided relationship that I allow because I saw a PBS special once in
the late eighties that said that plants do better if they’re talked to and who
am I to refute science? They were
wearing white lab coats, so it must be true. Now I praise the climbers for continuing along as I trained
them and I admonish the sedge for coming back even though I’ve made it
absolutely transparent that I want nothing more to do with it. Like a tenacious romantic-comedy Hollywood
boyfriend that I’ve broken up with repeatedly, Sedge keeps coming back, like it
or not, uninvited to laze about and make no worthwhile contribution of any
import to my life. More trouble
that he’s worth, yes, but at least he doesn’t speak. He can’t criticize me for the clover all over, the strawberry
plant that’s gone wild, or the honeysuckle that’s out for world domination.
I
head out to the backyard with quiet resignation in my heart and a bounce in my
step. I spend hours pulling up the
weeds and yanking out my demons.
Gardening as a meditation on patience, growth and acceptance. It feels good to get dirty, to envision
my yard’s future in its lush richness and nestle annuals into their new
homes. No wonder my mom was always
gardening. It got her away from
the children where she could retreat into her mind and thoughts of calmer
weekends and people who actually appreciated what she cooked for dinner and
told her so to her face.
Recently,
I pointed to a flower along the side of the road and asked my mom for its
name. “Heck if I know,” was her
answer. I said, “I thought you
knew the names of all the flowers.”
“Goodness, no,” she said, “I know the names of like six things and
that’s about it. Could never
remember the rest.” “But I thought
you were such a big gardener.”
“No, not really,” she said, “Your father did most of the gardening. I mostly weeded. But I found it pretty boring to be
honest.” This was news to me. “You did? I thought you couldn’t wait to get out there, get your hands
dirty, enjoy the meditative calmness of repetitive, you know,
weed-pulling.” Mom took another
drag on her cigarette and said, “I would have rather been reading.” I smirked. “One of your trashy murder-mysteries?” I said. She nodded. I
thought about this for a moment.
All this time I thought she was such a gardener, but in actuality, she
was a reluctant gardener. “Oh,”
was all I said. Then, “If you
weren’t so crazy about it, how come you didn’t make us help you? It would have gone so much faster and
we would have kept you company.”
“Because when we were kids, your father and I had so many chores on the
weekends that we decided we wanted you to have more fun than we did, so we let
you run around the neighborhood and play with your friends.” “Oh,” I said. Then, I added, “Thanks.” She put out her cigarette and said, “You’re welcome.”
Today,
my son gets home from school in an hour.
I would love to have him help me in the garden. It’d be a great education for him and
such a nice mother/son bonding experience for us. He can yank and dig and get as dirty as he pleases and I can
teach him the names of all the plants and flowers I’ve learned—boasting many
more than six and still counting.
We can talk about color and composition and he can help me decide where
to put the annuals. Not to mention,
I’d love to have the company. My
son would much rather be reading.
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