And so it begins.

Today we swing into full gardener, lawn care, landscape mode. We are planting tomatoes, spreading soil and grass seed, planting flowers, spreading fertilizer, weed killer, and hope. Hope mixed with some prayer and topped with wishes. Watered into the fresh, earth, carefully chosen, and purchased, carried home in the back of a pickup, hauled around by hand to the back of the house, cut open and spread with care to cover the bare spots. Seed sprinkled generously over the dark, rich soil. 

But, the real good news is the emergence of my true calling, “travel videographer.” I know a trip to the local warehouse style hardware store with its endless aisles, vanishing help, and dizzying variety of styles, prices and milling, moving rivers of customers wouldn’t seem to offer much fodder for a video, maybe though, if you look at it right. 

Streams of people, all with huge carts loaded with lumber, tools, plants, bags, bundles and bales, piled so high they can hardly see around them. So heavy they can hardly steer. Big, unwieldy tanks left right in the middle of the path and rush over to look at the pallet piled high with something on sale. A huge basket, heavy, imposing and impossible to get around, a rock in the middle of a stream, laws of fluid motion fueled by anger, haste, and self importance. 

You can almost hear the indignity. “That is where I was going to leave my cart, you inconsiderate slob.” And, if the pallet of sale items is significant enough there will be a row of heavy carts, running down the aisle, around the corner, and back to the door leading to the garden center. From that point it becomes a phenomenon that feeds itself.  More people see the fascination and want a small piece, without even knowing what lies at the end of the rainbow. 

It doesn’t take long for the wait to increase the pressure. By the time people get to the display they are in a feeding frenzy, convinced that anything worth that kind of line, slow, interminable had to be valuable enough to buy several, no matter what it was. Supply and demand at its most primitive. 

Fortunes are made in those moments. A mad dash, in slow motion, a wide band of shopping carts narrowing into a laser focus at one spot and exploding out from a single point, for something, anything. It is a play that repeats across stores, across cities and states, driving up the value of companies whose products have stirred the interest of a random shopper whose tastes runs toward bargains in bulk. 

I like to wander, look, touch, pick up things, examine them, wonder if the product and I could have a meaningful relationship. My wife hates it when I touch things, but she knows it is who I am, I have to touch fence posts, stop signs, it is how I practice communion with the world, it keeps me grounded. And I like to look at things in stores, find out if it would be my thing, a thing I could use. Normally it isn’t, sometimes, though. My wife goes with a plan, she has studied the advertisement, she knows what she wants, and has a path laid out in her mind. But she is willing to wander a bit, to keep me in sync with things, she is good to me that way.

Spring Yardwork Whining volume 2

Last week, I wrote, among other things, about a bare spot in my lawn. My feelings that it might have supernatural, or even extraterrestrial origins. Actually, I didn’t write about extraterrestrial, that just came to me today, but it seemed to dovetail so perfectly into the narrative I am adding it now. Maybe a tiny space ship lands there, burning away all the vegetation and unleashing an army of clover, dandelions, broadleaf grass and some green mossy looking stuff that is almost impossible to kill. These little alien flora marauders crawl through the neighborhood taking over lawns, choking gardens, eventually destroying the mankind one yard at a time, talk about invasive species.  But, that is just a theory.

It is a funny thing, dirt comes in several levels of quality. Our “dirt,” the stuff in our yard, with little nutritional value for plants is called with much derision “clay.” It is the bottom rung on the ladder of dirt quality. There is topsoil, garden soil, potting soil, lawn soil, peat moss, bags of stuff I can’t even remember the name, a whole range of bagged dirt, from dozens of companies stretching into the depths of the garden center at the local hardware superstore. Some labeled “organic” as if dirt can be anything else. For this job we bought topsoil.

Anyway, I built up the area with several bags of topsoil. Topsoil is sold in medium sized bags weighing hundreds of pounds. It is like wrestling a floppy, compressed car stuffed in a flexible plastic shell. I thought it was going to kill me.

Cutting the bag open you couldn’t help being moved a little by the rich, dark, aromatic, almost beautiful quality. And, for a few brief seconds I felt connected to the earth, in tune with the forces that breathe life into seeds. I felt a deep attachment to the plants, struggling to break through the dark embrace of soil and reach to the warmth and nourishment of the sun. For the smallest instant carrying the heavy bags up the lawn seemed worth it. 

Until I looked at my hands and forearms, they were filthy. My back ached, my legs were sore, and shaky, and I was drenched in sweat. And I still had to spread the grass seed. Curse you, photosynthesis, curse you lush green grass, and whatever had created the bare spot in my lawn. Curse you all the weeds that had poked up all around my lawn, all over the neighborhood. Curse the rules of polite society that have classified the stuff that grows so readily, so easily, as undesirable weeds. Dandelions, with their bright yellow flowers have a beauty, and require no help, they just grow, don’t they deserve to live, too?

There are a few more spots in the yard that need attention. Today we are off to buy more soil, trips through the madness of spring time warehouse club hardware store shopping. We will look and my wife will ask which we should get, as if I know anything about it. I will steer her towards the smaller, lighter bags, easier to carry, not so liable to cause injury, and she will decide on the bags from the Scotts, or Miracle Gro, the best name for the best price. It is our little spring dance.

Still, there is something satisfying in yard work, I can’t deny it. A freshly mowed lawn is a treat, the aroma, the manicured appearance, the neat clean lines from running the edger along the sidewalk and street. Lines of demarcation, the sidewalk and the yard each have a place, and each should respect the other. The uniformity, the neatness, the precise, orderly green of man and grass working together.

It is work, and it never ends, but it is like life, if you put in a little bit you get back a little. And really if you can live with that you can live pretty happily. 

Mothers Day shopping, almost Labor day, I wish

Parts One, Two, Three, four and five are here, please have a look,

Almost unnoticeable in the mists and breeze stood the entrance to the aisle where the lattice work and fence sections were shelved. The floor was definitely starting to roll under our feet now. We had the cart, the orange, unwieldy shopping cart, emblazoned with the Home Depot logo to hang onto.

Unsteadily we made our way down the narrow path. Wooden casks stood, strapped to pallets in the middle of the aisle, and down the right side crates, nailed tight, stood, lonely in the dim light. Men came, men wearing grey clothes, rambling slowly, steadily there movements timed exquisitely with the movement of the floor, and picked up a crate. Turning slowly they carried the crate to the swinging doors in the back of the store.

"Hey, let's ask them where the lattice is." My wife suggested, smiling politely, as if we were bathed in the light and crowds of the mall, looking for a cinnamon roll, or iced tea. Not stuck in the netherlands of Home Depot on a holiday weekend.

"OK." I said, she had made up her mind, the course was set and we had full sail, there was no turning back now. Besides, there might be some light on the dock. This gloomy, misty, damp fog was starting to have a negative effect on me.

Unfortunately, the dock was just as dreary, and crowded. Men, shabby clothes, stringy hair, gaunt, bony, matted beards, rags wrapped around their heads, moved slowly around the area. Moved past us as if we did not exist. One of them had a wooden hammer, rounded and worn.

At the ringing of a great bell, a bell that shook the walls, rattled our bones, he slammed a pin that held a wheel, it spun slowly, gaining speed, pulling a chain through a hole in the floor. It stopped with a crash, and a voice screamed "Raise the main sail."

It echoed around the room, and with a great sigh the room, and several adjoining areas, including the employee break room and the public rest rooms broke free from the building. We were adrift, I could hear a lighthouse bell in the distance. All around us the men moved with a purpose, in and out of the mist, and fog.

I looked at my wife, and said, "I told you we should leave."

"Without the lattice for the cucumber?" Her voice was filled with an outraged shock. Her disbelief was profound.

"Man the starboard cannons. We are sailing to send Lowes to the bottom of the sea." A voice, deep, resonant, steeped with the weight of command, an ancient voice from a forgotten past echoed around the "ship."