Saturday, March 26, 2022

It officially started today.

What started today? Got a few minutes for me to elucidate?

Turn your mental clock back roughly six months and imagine the ideal day summer afternoon in late June. Temps in the high 70’s, clear blue sky and the collective hum of humans enjoying the hell out of their weekend, pandemic be damned.

Now imagine a six-foot-three tall man decked out in an old concert tee, homemade shorts erratically cut from an old pair of khakis, and big ass boots. He has trowel and pruners in hand along with his trusty bucket. He’s ready to “garden”. He looks damn good.

Until he suffers through a mini-breakdown a half-hour in. OK, maybe that’s a bit of an exaggeration. It’s probably not fair to lump infantile stomping in with those suffering from true emotional breakdowns. But if you had been privy to my temper tantrum you’d have been more likely to laugh than feel any level of concern. Fortunately for me, no footage of the event exists.

What started as your run-of-the-mill weed pulling expedition quickly descended into the smashing of a trowel into the ground and the following declarations:

“I’m done. I can’t keep up with it anymore.”

“Gardening sucks.”

“I’m ordering a truck full of rocks and removing every f’n plant from this pathetic display of a garden.”

All three statements were prompted by my wife’s simple inquiry: “How’s it going, John?” She stared at me in awe as I rambled on. And I wasn’t done.

“This garden looks no better than it did when we moved in 20 years ago. What a waste of time and money. I suck.”

My wife calmly allowed me to continue my spiraling out of control before responding. With a sense of calm and reasonableness, she uttered, “Why don’t you hire someone to help you? You can’t do this by yourself. It’s too much for anyone to manage.”

As usual, she was right.

And hire someone I did. He and his team took no mercy on the garden. They trimmed the entire jungle of weeds to the ground. They mulched the entire garden and cut back what needed cutting back. From there, I sprayed my homemade weed killing concoction (water, dish soap and salt) at the first sign of a weed poking through the mulch.

It worked but it all looked so bare.

I managed to go from overwhelmed from the volume of weeds to overwhelmed from the empty space. Could I fill it fast enough to prevent the weeds from returning even more pissed off? While the weeds were gone, so were many of the perennials that had become intertwined with the weeds. What had I done? All the years of sweat and nurturing rendered useless, not to mention the money thrown away on all the plants.

One stress replaced another.

But then I pulled myself up by my weathered bootstraps and made a promise to myself.

Do it right this time.

And that’s what I’ve preached to myself every day since. More frequent trips outside but shorter in duration. Be realistic. Garden smarter not harder. Fill it up with smart plant choices.

The new approach commenced today.

An hour spent cutting down the grasses during what started as a rainstorm but soon after transformed to snow. Snot dribbled down my chin. Boots drenched and fingers numb.

And I loved the shit out of it.

Can’t wait to do it again tomorrow.