“The mower blade hit the rock, protesting as it did, causing me to jump, then twist. “This is better than making a fool of myself on the dance floor”, I thought. The mower continued downhill, nearly without me, yet somehow, I hung on. An uneven terrain, of sedge grass, wood chips, flea bane, queen Anne’s lace, and unrepentant boulders, left by the ice age. Not to mention ruts I’d made driving the truck full of firewood, up to the yurt, in muddy conditions. “Are we a team, or what?” I muttered to the machine, suddenly taken by the idea that we might both be ignited by the challenge: a relay race, of sorts. My wits, my reflexes, alternating with the gizmo’s rotational fortitude, and mighty blades. I’m grateful for this small window. Now, as I write in a darkening corner room, night comes hastily. Jagged lightning clambers in the window, followed by booms & claps, and sheets of rain. The roof feels secure, but fragile in some strange admixture of hope & fear. Sound comes barreling into the wood bench, thru my body and into the inert coffee machine. I flash on an image, from a dream. Part of this reality, or not, it hardly matters. Life is so kinetic, despite our fact list, what we think we know. It could all blow apart, and maybe it has. The regulars, who know us, have kept us sane. The bobcat operator at Central Supplies, who gives me shit when I don’t buy my usual: not a latte, but two scoops of bark mulch. My neighbor, who checks in to make sure I am watering my transplants. A client, who texts to make sure I know a poetry reading has been cancelled. Even the CSA farmer, who feels embarrassed when she forgets my name, because I’m not usually the one picking up. Or the cashier at the gas station mid-way between my job, and home, who laughs in a friendly way, when I fumble a transaction. I could sit in my truck, in that comfortable spot just shy of the neon sign, all day, all night, texting friends, thinking about life, admiring the dirt on my hands, admiring the tire in my muscles. Tomorrow might be Farmer’s market on the green, or a gazebo concert, or a veteran’s BBQ. The secrets I haven’t yet unearthed about the hills in this quadrant, the people I don’t know, the gates still keeping me out, the elusive friends I may never connect with again, all cushion me in my safe space, of being ignorant, of being human. They won’t say I didn’t try, no, that is not up for discussion. And upon arriving to work with my 4WD on, to cross a field, to get to a place, to do a job no one else will ever do, where valleys like this still exist, and fragment time into endless shards of beauty. That’s where I’d rather be, when the apocalypse hits. Just my normal: which rake, which bucket, which pair of Felcos. Small, medium, or large. Just like ordering over the counter at Starbucks. Only, I won’t be around any Starbucks anymore. The stream of life has whisked me far, far away. Into a world where I can do without, where I have done without and thrived. Where the ingenuity to have pleasure isn’t based on proximity, but on integrity. Where the depth of honest feeling is a chattel no one can buy anymore, or steal from me. Where “flying monkeys” are a fairy tale, not a real set of deluded henchmen, who come after the wrong target. And when we arrive to the end of a long gardening day, we always come up with a winner. Which flower or plant, has spoken up with the most aesthetic force, with the most humility, with the purest tone? It was hands down, the soft, pink daylily, with yellow core, that appeared from nowhere, just as we where about to drive out.”
