I have not posted for three months primarily because I have been working so hard that my typical evening results in my crashing on the sofa in complete exhaustion and watching hours of television, mostly cable news.
I have finally reached the saturation point.
Starting with watching the psychological implosion of a television star, moving on to the blood-bath happening in North Africa, and now culminating with a trifecta of quake, tsunami, and nuclear meltdown in Japan, I just could not take one more minute of it. Today, I flipped off the television and headed over to an elderly relative’s house to work in his garden.
A little therapy among the tomatoes, radishes, and weeds.
I read something recently on another blog — and I apologize for not remembering which one — which suggested that physical labor can be used as a form of meditation. I know I was not meditating while I was mixing manure into a plot of ground, but I can say that doing something as basic as working in dirt made me feel better. I am not going to speculate why. It just did.
Well, okay, maybe I will offer just this one observation: as I was pulling up some particularly tough devil-grass from among my radishes, it occurred to me that this was the first time I felt in control of a situation for a number of days. For a few minutes, that feeling of utter helplessness in the face of the current world crises – not to mention a few personal ones – disappeared.
I felt empowered as I pulled up those wretched weeds.
But then I went home, washed the dirt from under my nails, and made the mistake of turning on CNN.
Now, I’m doing some ironing.
L. Gloyd (c) 2011
Newly installed tomato plants, a radish crop ready for harvesting, and new snapbean runners in the garden.
