The crazy, unpredictable month of May is finally behind us here in the northeast. On any given day you could pick from a selection of seasons all happening in the stretch of one week: winter, fall, summer. Spring only showed up for a few days here and there. We even had a frost advisory out for the overnight from May 31st to June 1st!
But now, thank heaven, real spring is upon us and I can finally get out and do what I've been dreaming of since I moved in with my daughter and her family last October ... garden! I don't mean indoor gardening on windowsills and under grow lights. I mean real, get-dirty gardening. My original plans to create some raised beds had to be postponed because of upcoming construction that will be taking place over the summer in the yard which includes ripping down an old shed, building another one at the other side of the yard, and extending the cement patio. What I created instead was a tiny container garden. This will allow me to move the pots if they get in the way of the construction and still be able to finally garden outside where things were intended to grow.
The first few days were taken up with laying out the garden fabric, putting down mulch and putting up a small fence to keep the family dog from investigating what Grandma was doing. Then I pulled out some of my old planters that my daughter had been storing in her shed for me for years. This included a little metal tricycle with baskets to hold pots, a hanging basket, and my sweet wooden garden bear that my sister gave me years ago when I moved up to these parts 34 years ago and started my first garden. Then the fun really began.
Feeling my hands in the dirt for the first time in years felt like a gift from God. I only had my new gardening gloves, a gift from my great-grandson this Christmas, on for a few minutes. I had to take them off. I had to feel the soil clumping between my fingers, had to see it crawl under my fingernails, had to smell that rich, loamy smell up close. I had to push my seedlings and plugs in and mound the dirt around them with my bare hands. It didn't take long in that precious, present moment to send waves of joy, contentment, and gratitude flowing through me.
Edna St. Vincent Millay, one of my favorite poets, has a line in her epic poem, "Renascence" which says:
"God, I can push the grass apart
And lay my finger on They heart."
That's what I feel when I am gardening, when the soil in my hand feels like touching Mother Nature herself. I feel as if God is right there with me, directing me, guiding me. When I am participating in nature, I am in the presence of All That Is. What more could I possibly want.
