“The new gardening client, situated somewhere between the Adirondacks & Mt. Mansfield, was more than generous. “I’m going to get you an electric cart”, he said. I suppose I’d been a bit cranky about the distance from garden to compost pile and later, backpedaled. “We can drag tarps,” I assured him. But he was insistent. I like a negotiation that seems like capitulation, but without anyone losing ground. “Thank you’, I finally uttered, meaning it, but not requiring either of us to bend over backwards. Either way, the job would get done. We worked our first day in a stiff wind, that rolled up from the massive lake, miles below. Noisy flocks of geese startled us, much lower and louder, than anything we see in the hill country, denizens driving their bodies along an expansive raceway south, heading feverishly away from the cold. I could only imagine what that would be like. Our placement was to stay put, and outrun the snow until it overtook our delicate labors, and shut us down in a blanket of white. Humans have a different set of wings, more internal, more tortured. “So, we’re planning to do a polar plunge on Tuesday”, my partner confided. Maybe I kept digging, upon hearing this, maybe I shivered, or wondered about the efficacy of it. Still, I would never reject the notion, that intentional hardships, done while fully cognizant, might be of value. For some, not all. The key is to realize we all are trying to push the earthly envelope, to shock the system, where we can, to wake our higher powers. For some, its sitting erect in a church pew, not comfortably; for some its re-enrolling in a dating app, while declaring to not really be into it. If only nature could tell us what to do, throw us into the sky and send us packing towards a better future. But no, we must take every molecule of stuck-ness, and twist it into hope, while rooted in position. We were so grateful, when the client’s wife appeared out of nowhere, with a lovely, chatty monologue, about trimming her conifers. It’s the back & forth between poetic epiphanies, and practical tasks, that makes life bearable, even purposeful. Falling in love with a stranger, is something we need to do, on a daily basis, if we can. It’s an impossible mix that stirs the pot, makes us curious, even chastened, if we’ve been assuming things about others, by rote. “The other gardener kept refusing to cut down the hydrangeas, and I kept saying, it’s okay, just do it”. I could see her point. I had, in fact, just “done” it. I’d decided, though not entirely clear on which hydrangea I was dealing with, to raze the plant, to the ground. Not a totally uninformed decision, yet, none-the-less, a risk, depending on what had gone on before. You can’t just step in, with a bossy attitude, like you know it all. Well, you can, but in my experience, there are always things to be learned, so why assume you are an authority? Better to hunker down, on a lower rung, until you know what you’re dealing with. The time to assert, will become apparent. or the time to quit ... if things go awry. The clients drove off, and so we were alone, dangling in our new environment, trying to make sense of it. Security cameras now being the norm, we didn’t do anything too weird, or disrespectful, nor would we want to but it gives one pause. Our diligence, may it be so noted, is beyond reproach, cameras or no cameras. I was excited, I admit, to find a plant fairly new to me, called Toad Flax. It pulled up like an annual, but seemed perennial in other respects. The pungency of cut catmint, an able filler between shrubs, filled our nostrils, as we yanked and cut, and threw skeins of leafy matter, into an ever-growing heap. The crows did another fly by and I wondered about how life was for crows, these days. The birds keep gardeners from feeling so plebeian. It’s a secret, between us, and them. Regardless of how forgotten we feel, or alone, they implode our silences, and rant unashamedly. Every foot fall in the world of managed aesthetics, is matched & upended by the raucous cat calls of ravens. Our final dash to rake, and smooth, and neaten in nearly dark by 5 pm, unable to see our tools, is nothing to the ones, who have lived every moment from nest to migration, leaving no mark. With no confusion, insurrection, or doubt, that flight is the only sensible way out of this maze.”
