you are viewing archives from 2004

growth spurt

I’m a dirty girl.

I can taste the salt of my skin as I run my tongue over my lips. Sweat streaks down the backs of my knees. My muscles are achy and sore. The air is fragrant with my effort.

I’ve been gardening.

I’ve never been much for working outside. Hell, I’ve never been much for outside, period. I used to joke that the only time I camped out overnight was when my parents locked me out.

When A. and I moved into our house, one of the things I liked best about it was that I wouldn’t have to do anything outside. The backyard was outfitted with a patio and a lemon tree; the front yard with cactus and lavender. All that was required of me was to collect the bill that the gardeners slipped under the door every month and hand it to A.

The past few months I’ve been depressed and restless. I’ve been working, running various projects up the flagpole only to have them mostly ignored. My efforts at the gym were not paying off. I had to put my dog to sleep. Everything that I had worked for, it seemed, was dying on the vine while I watched, helpless. All I wanted to do was to hibernate, sticking my head under the covers until I could be assured that it was safe to come out.

Suddenly, we had an unseasonably warm day out here in Southern California. I remember letting Daisy out into the backyard and sensing something was different. The sky was a bit brighter, the leaves a bit crisper, the air a bit more fragrant. That evening, I prepared dinner and dragged the chairs outside and A. and I ate under the stars.

Smell that, I told A.

Smell what? he asked.

It smells like spring.

Each day, as we continued to be woken up by the sun, I would patrol the yard, looking for things to do. I cleared dead leaves and underbrush. I attacked the scary tin shed, another leftover from the previous owners. I made piles of leftover cement blocks and bricks to eventually be hauled away. I stalked the yard, imagining what I could plant, if I knew how to do so.

I asked A. if he minded if I tidied things up a bit. He said no.

I scoured the Internet, checking out gardening sites. I made a map of the front and backyard, measuring the amount of sun and soil type of each location. I picked out flowers, taking into consideration height and color and care.

One Saturday, I headed over to the Home Depot. I bought a bag of soil, some marigolds, and a spade. That afternoon, I planted my first flower bed.

It looks pretty, A. said.

The next day, I bought two more bags of soil. And some mulch. And some cineraria and African daisies.

The day after that, it was poppies and cosmos and more soil, and plant food. And four terra cotta pots for flowers on the side of the driveway. And blue glazed pots to cover up the ugly cement that’s under the lemon tree. I bought pruning shears and pruned the existing rosebushes, as well as the lemon tree which had become quite overgrown.

Each morning, I make my list and check it twice, heading out to the nursery or the home supply store. Then I come home, slather sunscreen on myself and Daisy the dog, don my straw cowboy hat and my grubby clothes, and go outside and dig.

I’ve gotten all sorts of advice. One person told me pick out your flowers and get your Gardeners to do it. My mom suggested that I buy a wagon so I don’t have to manually lug the sacks of dirt all over the yard. It's much easier that way, she said.

But I don’t want it to be easy.

I want it to be hard.

I want to go outside and get dirty. I want to have fingernails caked with soil and filthy knees. I want to smell like moist, black earth. I want to strain with the effort of hauling and planting and pruning. I want sweat to pool in the small of my back.

I want to work. No matter how hard I try, I'm not cut out for a life of leisure. I want to run and play and dig and write and collapse into bed every night, exhausted and happy.

Since I’ve been spending my days outside, I’ve spent my nights in front of the computer, writing. Three outlines for A.’s show. The synopsis for my new screenplay. And finally an idea for a book that I know I can write.

Each morning I wake up, delighted that my plants are still alive. Sure, it's only been a week. I know that some of them are destined to die, because all the research in the world doesn't make up for experience.

I can only hope that my efforts, outside and inside, will take root and thrive.

But for the first time in months, I feel like I can make things grow.