One Foot In The Dirt

In my previous life, the one I had before we moved to Oregon, I spent a lot of time gardening.  Taking a tour of my "grounds" every morning with my coffee to inspect my herbs, to see what was budding, to see what was overgrown, to see which pests were getting out of hand- this was the most centering activity of my day.  The time I spent in it was rewarding both spiritually and in productivity.  One summer I didn't have to buy any vegetables for three months because I had plenty to pick from my own garden.  I cooked with fresh herbs that I picked from it every day.  I never had to buy bouquets of flowers from the farmer's market because I always had something pretty to bring in from my own yard.




My garden was an integral part of my work as a housewife and a stay at home mom. 

Since moving to Oregon I have put in time in the garden, but not the way I used to.  Running the store left very little time to walk through the pathways and listen to the plants and the bugs.  Everything I do in my garden is now rushed and stuck between two impossible other errands. 


On Tuesday I felt the great weight of my unplanted bulbs.  I had about sixty narcissus to plant and I was feeling all the excitement of new beginnings and thought that planting those bulbs on the inauguration day of a president I actually have some hope for was a nice symbolic gesture.  It was cold (probably about 40 degrees) out but also sunny.  A gorgeous day to sit in the garden.

The kid was already home from school and just when he was starting to complain of boredom a friend of his came over and they went off to the school grounds to play.  I went to out to the garden.  I planted my bulbs.  I weeded.  I noticed the spider egg sacks tucked away beneath dead annuals.  I saw the swelling buds on my roses. 

I went to my monastery garden to plant the remaining bulbs around my elephant heart plum tree, which is the center piece, and to sprinkle some poppy seeds there too.  First I had to weed.  So I started weeding and everything went quiet.  I could hear children (mine, for instance) on the playground but as a happy distant sound, the sun was touching me in that harmless way it does in the winter, and everything was so quiet.  The delicious quiet of a body and mind completely engaged in the present. 

The mind travels while I pull up weeds but it does so while its root never leaves the minute we're in.  I was remembering this feeling from before.  I was remembering my life pre-child when I had all day to take care of my house and my garden.  When I could spend five hours digging up wild onions and not notice until the sun started slanting and changing color.  I would then come into my kitchen to cook and my whole world was calm and my cheeks freshly freckled.  Life wasn't about navigating between one crisis and the next.  It had calm rhythm. 

After having the kid I still found time in the garden during his nap times and sometimes he would dig in the dirt while I weeded or pruned.  I do not have a quiet mind.  Finding any activity that dulls the noise in there is like medication.  Necessary.  It amazes me how long I've survived without demanding of myself that I make time every day to walk through my yard.  To tour it like a Queen surveying her borders- making sure that all is right in her world, that her walls of old stone haven't crumbled while she slept.

I won't get to buy much for my garden this year due to lack of funds, but I will choose a few things carefully and I will throw lots of flower seeds out there to see what comes up.  I have heard myself say I don't have much time as an excuse for why I haven't done this or that.  I have heard it said by everyone I know.  "I don't have time..." 

But that isn't true for anyone.  We all have the exact same amount of time every day.  We fill it up as we see fit.  If it isn't working out for us, if how we fill our time is stressing us out, we absolutely have the right to change things, to elliminate activities, to say no to another children's activity that will stress you out.  We like to say we have to do things "for the kids" or because we imagine it's our responsibility. 

I know from personal experience that kids are happiest when their parents are the most relaxed and sane.  Kids would rather do less if it means their parents won't be as stressed out.  Spouses can iron out grievances with each other better when each one spends some time every week feeding their spirits- not each others' spirits- their own.  Alone time. 

While I'm always going to need pharmaceuticals to help me stay balanced, the other part of staying balanced is up to me and what I choose to fill my days with.  There were lots of other things I was supposed to be doing on Tuesday, but I couldn't stay away from the dirt any longer and when I finally came in, with numb fingertips and dirty clothes, I felt so good.  Not euphoric or excited, but deeply good.  Like-as long as there are carrots to pull up from my soil, and bulbs to look forward to in spring-then everything else can be handled. 

My garden never demands perfection of me.  It doesn't mind having weeds.  It doesn't mind how I pack everything in too closely.  It doesn't ask me to be anyone I'm not.  I talk out loud to my plants and they talk back to me. 

Ever since the summer of 2005 we've been scrambling to figure everything out, we've moved to another state, failed at running a retail store, gotten jobs that didn't pay the bills, bought one home we didn't love and then found and moved into one we did.  We've been struggling and struggling to settle, to find our peace, to find our new spot, to find the old rhythm of living that suited us so well.  We have spent so much time in an agony of difficult decisions to make.  We have flailed around trying to find community we're comfortable in and it's been a tremendous clamour- all this shifting, moving, failing, searching, working, working, working.

Here we are, still struggling of course, but the rythm is returning.  Slowly. It's been so slow.  But I'm finally feeling it again.  Part of that necessary rythm is time spent in my garden.  Not to have a perfect one but just to have a relationship with one.  Just to nurture something that always gives back as much as you put into it.  Always.  It never keeps score.  It never shames.  It always responds.  It shares surprises, mostly pleasant. 

Maybe I could have found the old rythm sooner.  No, I know I could have.  Because I understand that I had choice, all along.  I had choices and I made them.  The dirt was there for me, always.  I just stopped listening.  I pulled my roots completely up when I could have left them in the soil while I worked at other things.  But I did.  It's wonderful how my garden doesn't keep score.  When I spent time out there on Tuesday it smiled at my return.  Like a mother that never turns you away when you return home. 

The lesson is plain: always keep one foot in the dirt.

I want to know what other gardeners feel when they are working in their little kingdom.  Tell me what it does for you, what you think about (if anything) while you prune and plant and weed.  I want to know why you do it, how often you get out there, and what do you like to bring inside from it?  I want to know what your hopes are for your gardens- are you working to transform it or is it already perfect the way it is today?  What are the greatest lessons you've learned from your garden and working in it?

In short- I want to know everything.