The Explosion
“The mountain watches over me hidden by clouds, or in cahoots with a sunset, reminding my downward dog to look up, not so many months before snow. I get it. You show it off while you got it, before they shut you down. The composted manure is pungent, too much so for the place I’d hoped to dump it. Some smells irk, like some people irk. But mostly, the aromas of abundance fill my nostrils. Too much earthiness here, to another, is something they love. “No problem - spread!” she’d texted. “I like the smell of cow manure. Basically, I’m a country girl.” You go, girl. I’ll spread, and you come visit your acreage, on the weekends, to catch not only a whiff but a transcendent contemplative moment, repeated many times. Vermont has been a city dwellers’ refuge for many decades even centuries. And those of us employing shovels or diggers, we fashion our work habits, accordingly. For example, I planned a week ahead, to buy garden forks at Paris Farmer’s Supply, on Friday. My old forks, one I broke last year, the other destroyed by a fellow worker last week, did them in. I had choices. Fiskar’s all metal, or the old school, wood handled forks of yore. You can’t divide some things without the grace of two forks. It’s a different animal, than a shovel, trust me. They didn’t flinch when my credit card was declined. They took a check. He was even nice about it, more embarrassed than I was to face the rejection, based on artificial intelligence, algorithms & politics, not reality. But who has time for that? Few that I know, take the time to dig into a bigger grid. They call me a “theorist”. But actually, if I’d done the same exploration for my PhD, I’d be a “scholar”. That’s why I’m still digging dirt, and digging with people who work their proverbial butts off, to achieve tangible, laudable goals. Yes, the infrastructure to the yurt was buried today, at a depth of at least six feet. Those three guys walked the trench in shifts, working shovels, making cozy the power line, the water line, the ethernet cable, insulating with blue board, pondering the odors. I re-stacked lumber, and dealt with an unwieldy roll of plastic, insinuated a ladder under garage rafters, and balanced my feet on a dresser, to wrestle down boxes of kitchen supplies. Moving a home after decades of rootedness is not for the faint of heart. I’ll continue to do what i can, to further the cause of this new life, heading out, audio blaring in my truck cab, to cancel out any notion of change, with a full mug of black tea, with cream and honey. Everything is as it should be. No one is screwing with my mind. No animal is sending a heat-seeking missile, to coordinates in my vicinity. I’m heading to ports of entry, where conifers, flowering shrubs and perennials boast of equity and demand to be adopted. As they should. With every ounce of my free will, I embrace the stewardship of planting, to create plots of grace & color explosion.”