The pull of the garden

It’s really not good for me. And I really shouldn’t do it. But I like it so much, I can’t help myself. I try to resist but eventually my will power weakens and I give in. The First Step is self-awareness, right? Admitting you have a problem? OK then. Deep breath:

I’m Toni and I’m a weedaholic.

When I go out in the garden, what excites me and causes me to get itchy with anticipation is not the budding flowers or the slowly ripening cherry tomatoes or the Walla Walla onions just starting to show their tops in the soil. Nope. What causes me to slather on sunscreen and grab my gardening implements with glee is seeing a mess of weeds that needs to be pulled.

I first discovered my love of weeding shortly after I graduated from college. I graduated a few months early so I was living back at home with my parents while all of my friends were still 80 miles away. I was rather lonely and adrift, as nobody I knew was doing what I was doing: looking for their first “real” job while trying desperately to get their parents to understand that they were now residing with an adult, a peer, someone who was used to calling her own shots. I was 22 years old, for goodness sake. I was all grown up and had life all figured out, just ask me.

Frustrated and misunderstood, I found myself often heading back to my college town on the weekends, to visit friends and the life that felt much more familiar and independent. One weekend, though, my parents got a bit miffed that once again I was planning to leave my free accommodations for a few days of fun at the beach. I was informed that I was going to stay put, young lady, and pull weeds on a big hill in their backyard. I was living there rent- and grocery bill-free and needed to contribute. I’m not sure that’s exactly what was said but it’s how it felt. And they were absolutely right, in hindsight. Naturally, at the time I couldn’t believe I was being treated like a child. And so I pouted accordingly. Nevertheless, I begrudgingly stayed “home” that weekend to weed their hill.

I distinctly remember the moment, several hours into my sentence, that I realized I was actually enjoying myself. Utterly to my surprise and disappointment, I was enjoying the peaceful time outside to quietly reflect and think...about my present, about my future, about my goals. I was enjoying the immediate signs of progress, the instant gratification that is like crack to Type A impatient persons like myself. And I was enjoying the sense of accomplishing something. With a stack of unanswered cover letters and accompanying resumes the only evidence of productivity at the time, this last unexpected benefit of My Time on The Hill was healing to my soul in a way I had no way of knowing I needed.

Of course, I never admitted any of this to my parents. Much as I never dared admit 10 years prior that I ended up loving the Mills Brothers when my parents dragged me into one of their concerts at Knott’s Berry Farm when I really wanted to be riding roller coasters. I insisted on hating every moment of that ridiculously old fashioned ‘30s music and had to work very hard to keep up my eye-rolling façade. Years later, pretending to abhor the therapeutic weeding was thus very familiar territory.

I now admit and embrace that there is much to reap from weeding. Truth is, weeding kills my back. While I can turn some of the movements into physical-therapy-sanctioned stretches, much of the activity is ill-advised for someone with a load of titanium in her back. But the tidiness, and wheelbarrows full of grasses and dirt, and solitude spent pensively with my iPod, and a hubby grateful for a job he loathes completed with a happy heart are all entirely addicting.

And so, after four days spent trying to ignore the pull of the weeds eclipsing our lettuce crop, this morning I submitted. I crawled and stretched and yanked and took many breaks. And the plot is now beautiful and enticing and appetizing. As a garden should be. And tomorrow I shall ache but my spirit will still be soaring.