So I'm going through that hormonal thing again, and I feel it reeling me in for another week long "whoa is me", episode.
"Not this time!", I'm thinking to myself.
Since last night I've been trying to figure how to snap myself out of this one with out reluctantly heading to a doctor for a symptomatic cure. I'm sitting out in the backyard this morning having my morning coffee and trying very hard to stay away from (hide on), the computer today. I'm looking over at my so-called garden that I've been piddling with over the past few months in hope of seeing something - anything - grow from the half-dead seedlings I planted.
Seriously! I planted all these organic herbs, tomatoes, peppers, purple and green beans, yada, yada, yada; and nearly all of them died! So what I had left, I've been trying desperately to keep alive.
Well.... not really, it would seem, since all those weeds are there.
Let me tell you, in a family of farmers, I was the only one born with a black thumb instead of green one. If there is a way to kill a plant without trying - I can do it!
So looking over that measly ragtag group of vegetation, I decided it was time to weed again. I won't tell you the last time I did some real weeding other than a few pulls here and there, of the "pod people" clovers that quietly weave their vines under the soil and then spring up everywhere. There like that crappy centipede grass that we have; all over the yard and serving absolutely no purpose whatsoever other to make the color green appear on my lawn!
So I began to weed... dig...... and weed. Then I'm onto hoeing some of the tougher ones out from around what herbs I have left and the experimental sweet potato plant my son plopped in a couple of weeks ago.
Wouldn't you figure! His sweet potato plant is doing far better than all of the shit combined that I planted!
45 minutes into this, I suddenly have one of those "Ah-HA!", moments. The neglectful weeding of my garden is exactly how my mind and soul feels at this moment.
I came to realize that life is just like gardening; you literally reap what you sow! Well " Duh!", you say!
Let's just say I'm one of those who has to learn the hard way instead of just taking someone's advice at, say...... age 18!
Like my garden, I have planted some good stuff in my life. On the other hand, I have neglected removing out the little shit weeds. They have grown bigger and overshadowed what is life giving to me and my personal garden.
The more I weeded my garden, the more I felt the weeds of my soul and mind being ripped out as well. I started planting some other seedlings that I was about to give up on, but decided they needed a chance to live as well. I was coming alive too and feeling joy return to my heart.
My kids were looking out the kitchen window as if their mother had gone mad as I was flinging dirt, weeds, and encroaching centipede grass from my garden. Soon they came out just to "watch". Then they were following me around with the bag of gardening soil and a spade; not asking what to do and not speaking much, but just watching me, then mimicking. Soon they were anticipating what I needed done before I even did it.
They eventually got the nerve to ask if they could help. Isn't that what they were already doing? There my little troopers were, waiting and ready to do as requested cause I think what they observed had finally surpassed the "mom's working" mentality they had going, and zoomed right into plain fascination of what I was trying to accomplish.
I saw it as my "self" was healing and my children were responding to their mother coming back to the land of the living.
Soon we were all hoeing, replanting elephant ears, planting more tomatoes and peppers, parsley, and something else that I started from a seed but don't remember what it was..... but I planted it anyway!
It was getting hotter and I found myself constantly in the kiddie pool bathing my face, arms, and legs with cool rain water. It suddenly took me back to a time when my grandfather got up before the sun, religiously every morning, to tend to his garden. Now I finally understood his passion.
Gardening is not just physical work that one should loath. It is an outer representation of what is going on in the inner shells of our body. Gardening is a way for me to release the weeds of my life that have accumulated through neglect and oversight. It is a way to let the good stuff grow while managing the unwanted and uninvited weeds that constantly want to creep in and take over those good plants.
I was filthy dirty when I was done some three hours later. My once white tank top was now covered with the earthly black of gardening soil, as were my now wet denim bike shorts. I was covered from head to toe in dirt, grass/weeds, and the sweet smell of sweat because I was smart enough to put deodorant before I started this whole process.
But I was happy and feeling alive for the first time in two days. I had discovered something that had been under my nose all this time without having me rush to a doctor tearfully pleading him for some drug to make it all go away (which, by the way, I was very close to doing).
My garden was just that drug. It would leave me with no other side affects other than dirty fingernails, a sense of pride and accomplishment, and a great need to take a long hot shower.
Come to think of it, I haven't seen any of those side affects listed in an anti-depressant commercial of late.
Who wants to weed?!
