Temp: 24 degrees
Ah, that's better, the sun is back. I was able to get out at lunch and get a little sun, and it was great to get home, get into my shorts, and spend a couple hours weeding, watering, and gardening. This will probably come as no surprise to most gardeners, and will probably seem pretty odd to everyone else, but I find weeding and watering to be sooo cathartic. It's not often that I get to perform such a mindless, yet productive, nurturing, and satisfying task. My mind is constantly racing throughout the day, always multitasking, always five or six things on the go at any gven time - and always one step behind, constantly scrambling to catch up.
It's amazing then, that a completely mindless, methodical and repetative task like plucking weeds in the warm sunshine can allow me to lose myself for hours, and leave me so satiisfied, and with such as feeling of acomplishment. Well, for one, you get to see results at the end of those two hours - where once there was a floundering flowerbed choking with weeds, there is now a healthy vibrant and groomed garden - and as satisfying as that is to see, that's obviously not the catharsis... the best part about gardening is allowing your mind to empty. The purging of all the superfluous thoughts, fragented ideas and remnants of cognitive scrap that have been plugging up your brain all day - that's what it's all about.
When I first start plucking weeds, my brain is telling me "why bother, they're just going to grow back, you're wasting your time - you could be writing that song you've been meaning to write, or you could pay those bills you forgot about, or you could do that grocery shopping you keep putting off, or you could stop procrastinating and finish off the damned basement you've had 'almost done' for 3 years now... why bother grooming these stupid herbs? They're just going to die or get eaten by bugs anyway... don't you remember that tomato plant you babied for five months only to have it grow a single tomato, and then as soon as it was almost ripe enough to pluck, the ants devourded it? Give up! Go have a beer! Relax, or at least do something productive! You're SO behind on your work right now it's a wonder you still have a job - if you were responsible, you'd be working late right now, not making a feeble excuse like 'gardening' ... all you really want to do is sun-tan, you know it, so why are you sitting in the grass plucking clover and getting eaten alive by bugs? Look around dude, everything in the yard is dead and/or dying anyway - you're obviously not helping anyway. And hey, when was the last time you updated your blog, shouldn't you be doing that? And while you're on the computer, you should update your myspace page, or see if there are any new geocaches in the area ... at least THAT would get you excercising, if you were out hiking or looking for a geocache... MUCH better for you than just sitting here. And speaking of exercising, you've got that nice big weight bench in the basement you bought 4 months ago, when do you think you're actually going to start using that thing? Oh come on Calvin, don't kid yourself - bench pressing three reps everytime you go to the basement for another beer does NOT constiture working out - what you should really do is finally take advantage of the full gym that your employer provides .. how many times have you been in there in the 6 years you've working n that building? Huh? Never? Yeah, that's what I though..."
So anyway, that's what's going on in my brain for the first 60 seconds I'm plucking weeds, and it continues on like that for another 10 or 15 minutes, but then something amazing starts to happen ... my brain starts to run out of things to bitch about, and slowly but surely, SPACE begins to form between my fragmented thoughts. Not much at first, but it's there. Invariably whatever song was playing on clock-radio when the alarm went off this morning will surface and some dumb riff will play over and over in my head for another 20 minutes or so, and when that happens I know the catharsis is beginning... soon, I'll hear a bird chirp, or a dog bark, and I'll realize, amazingly, that I haven't had a single worysome thought go through my head in quite some time. I'll stand up and look around and see that th eyard looks beautiful once again, and I'll smile.
I'll look at my watch, and think to myself "wow, has it really been two hours? How did that happen! I feel so peaceful - I wish I could just kneel here and weed all night. BUT, there are no more weeds left, and your knees really hurt, and besides, Carole will be home soon, so you'd better get dinner started, hey, and don't you think you've been in the sun too long anyway? You wanna burn to a crisp? You've had your shirt off for two hours and you forgot to put any sunblock on again, you numbskull! And hey, don't you have like a million other things you need to do anyway???"
And then, as quickly as it had disapeared, the clutter in my mind returns. Time for a beer. Or six. Well, it was nice while it lasted, and who knows how tightly I'd be wound if it weren't for those blessed weeds...
Posted by Calvin at July 7, 2006 08:12 PM