“Twice today, I thought I’d quit early. Maybe it wasn’t worth getting frostbite, in my toes. I took a brisk walk to the outer reaches of the garden, thinking to work my frozen parts. I clipped a few stalks, surveying summer’s dying sprawl, lulled by the spill of frigid pond water over boulders. A commanding trickle, a song few would hear, at this time of year. The tall conifers housing ravens rising above, the dull click of my tools so far below. I treasure these final days. The last of the mowers, the last of the stone masons, the last of the refugees landing softly into paradise. Readjusting myself on stone ledge, I can see just how badly the grass has gone rogue. Certainly, I was at the party, but now .. .the party is over. You don’t always know how you’ll leave: drunken, giddy; or aching to return as you kiss youth a fond goodbye. You can love something while it defiles you, pledge your faith to an object that is totally unworthy of you. Oh well. Live and learn. We’ve got to toughen up. The fairy princess reality we were born into is about to take a deep dive into Mordor. I’m truly sorry I’ve been in abject disagreement with the people I love the most. This is not about to change anytime soon. Lying on a tarp, with my bad knee bent away from the pain, I continue digging. on your behalf. Call me silly or dumb, or severely delusional. I really can’t pay much attention to that right now. I’ve been trying to rein in the prolific growth of things that insist on natural evolution, if you can relate to that at all. I’ve used machetes, scythes, forks, claws & even dug into the muddy soil with my bare fingers. If you can learn anything from a gardener it’s that life is not going to slow down for you. The incredible vitality of actual, earth-bound genetic material is here to fuck with your intellectual ideas about safety. We humans are beyond divine. Stand up and make your life exactly as you want it to be. I took solace from grass today, growing beautifully on a path that led into the mysteries of the hill country. How had I failed to notice that I was a part of that picture?”
