Growing Life (in our garden)

My parents are visiting from South Carolina this week. We timed this trip for spring so that Dad could help us with the yard, and they drove so that they could bring tools and machines to help. They also used this opportunity to bring up things of mine that were stored there since I'm in a house now. The most special item to me is the antebellum cradle, circa 1837, which my grandmother brought home from her antique shop when my mother was born, and which all three of us slept in as well. It is now in my basement, awaiting its future placement upstairs in the yellow room.

Today was our first full day of yardwork, and we got SO much done. We weeded, took the poles down that were supporting our trees but had been up probably for years too long, put our new electric lawn mower together that was a gift from my parents, planted vegetable seedlings in starter pots, tilled my gardening area, and re-shaped and enlarged an area that has bushes so that we could plant our blueberry bush there too. The dirt felt so good and alive in my hands, and I realized how sorely I have been missing my connection to the earth. I grew up by a dirt road we would walk down and watch tadpoles in a puddle. I was both a camper and a camp counselor in the Blue Ridge mountains. I played in the woods in my own backyard, letting my Barbies swim in the creek. Becoming a city girl has left me heartsick in a way that only an experience like this can start to heal.

As I sifted the beautiful, soft Long Island soil between my fingers, marveling in the difference between that and the unrelenting red clay of my homeland, I saw worms come up, squirming frantically upon their exposure. I watched them wriggle and then carefully carried them - at least five in total - to the other gardening area that was ready, in an attempt to minimize the loss of life that would occur when my father used the tiller on this plot. My family was very patient as I carried out my rescue mission, and teased me affectionately when we later saw a robin looking to snack on one of the very worms I had saved from the tiller. But can't you see how much more peaceful and natural that is? That didn't happen because of me, and served a purpose in the world, which makes all the difference.

As Nicole and I finished planting the blueberry bush and stood back to view her, looking so small and fragile and vulnerable as a mere stick in that large plot of soil that we had just created out of patchy lawn, we smiled at each other and I said a soft "Shehecheyanu" that only we could hear.

What a feeling to help nurture life, and the very life that will sustain us if we can keep her alive long enough.

I can't wait to start on the vegetables.