garden rant

Have I mentioned this before?  I HATE gardening.  I do like looking at, sitting in, pretty gardens.  And I’ve learned to really appreciate them, now that I know how much sweat and pain goes into making them pretty.  And there are real people, I’ve even met some, who claim to love time spent in the dirt.  They say it’s relaxing!  That’s the most incomprehensible thing I’ve ever heard.  More incomprehensible than liking Sarah Palin. This summer, readying my huge back yard for my daughter Jessica’s August wedding reception (of course I want it to be perfect for her) I have been waking every sunny morning with a sense of dread, and greeting the rainy days with joy, until I realize that rain is not only keeping me indoors (yum) but helping the weeds to grow (ugh).

I’m just now calling it quits from another day out there in the beautiful birdsong breezes, which I can’t enjoy because I’m in a state of rage and self-pity the entire time.  I’ve got this sacroiliac thing that literally paralyzes me with pain after only a few minutes of bending and stooping, so I have to stop and stop and stop to let the agony recede before I start again.  I can weed only by sitting there among the ants and spiders and mud, yanking out those tenacious roots.  I can’t kneel because my knee is still screwed up from a fall at a party in March, so I scoot around on my butt, sweat dripping in my eyes, poked by sharp sticks, a constant stream of swear words coming from my lips.  I slather myself in repellent, but the mosquitoes still find every little spot I’ve missed and merrily suck my blood.  (People LIKE this??)  And after hours of hard miserable labor, I step back to look at the results, and they’re barely noticeable, such a tiny percent of the vastness of the greenery.  The previous tenant put in at least a dozen circular plantings, so I have to pick around all those precious perennials–plants that I think must sense my loathing, as they turn black, shrivel, get chomped by bugs, and die while the weeds thrive.

Time to shower, pour some wine, sit out there and enjoy what’s left of the day, blurring my eyes so I won’t see all that needs to be done.  And pray for a rainy day tomorrow, so I can stay in and work on getting the house ready.  And maybe if I’m lucky find time to make some art.  But it is kind of pretty out there….

Tags: back pain, bugs, flowers, garden, gardening, plants, sweat, weeds, yard