The Healing Power Of A Garden

Tonight I was reading about gardens and thinking about gardens and fretting about my garden.

Because it's in that jungle like/ past it's prime/ hasn't been weeded for weeks/ rained on too much/  the moonflower is eating the boxwoods/ state it hits every September.

As much as I want to run outside with a flashlight and get to work right now, I'll bide my time till Sunday and pray it doesn't rain, though it's in the forecast.

My first post written two years in September dealt with this very topic: garden neglect.

I thought back to the fall of 2004 when I was a month or so into a big breakup.   After Labor Day I stopped gardening.  The cherry tomatoes hung on the plants, to be eaten by birds. Morning glories climbed up the gutter and onto the roof.  And the grass grew and grew.

I stayed focused on the interior of the house, had the kitchen painted pink (?), a burdensome island that took up 2/3s of the tiny room taken out and a new tile floor laid.

And I lost my appetite for food and for gardening.

Then suddenly it was October 31st, a warm sunny Sunday, and I woke up energized. I went outside and put my hands in the dirt for the first time in months.  And I cleaned beds and pulled down vines and mowed the lawn and ate the last of the cherry tomatoes.

And when I was done and the garden looked loved again, I took one of those showers you take after a day spent working outside.  You know the kind, where you feel sore and energized and calm all at the same time.  And you are sure water has never felt better and you have never been cleaner.

Then I got dressed and went out with a friend and ate a huge meal and then took my first salsa lesson.

The power of dirt and dancing.  Made a new woman out of me.