| Jun. 30th, 2009 @ 03:21 pm The Pretentious and Overly Sentimental Gardener |
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I cut the first cucumber of the season out of my garden today. We sliced it up almost ritualistically and made it a course for lunch, and we all partook of cucumber wafers in communion-like fashion.
I took up gardening to create. It was a love of creation. All the while I watched the destruction I wrought and tried to ignore it or suppress it. It was as if I could hide from the competition for survival of the animal world in the garden. Forgive me, I’m new at this and I was naïve.
While I compose this, thinking of myself as a wanna be Vishnu, when I instead had to play the entire pantheon to be a good creator, almost mockingly, Tom Waits is asking, “Why wasn’t God watching; Why wasn’t God listening; Why wasn’t God there for Georgia Lee;”
Despite the fact that I had to uproot and destroy one hundred or so square feet of grass to create my garden I felt that I was creating. Despite the fact that my shovel style of plowing consistently chopped earthworms in two, I saw a grand plan and design. Despite or because of the fact that I was committed to continue the cycle of life by placing all discarded vegetation in my homemade compost bin, I tore through unwanted vegetation to get to the desirable stock.
In the garden too, we use more terms to devalue some forms of like as we cultivate others. What makes one variety a plant and another a weed? I discovered a social climber in my garden. This social climber had come to me when I needed to be convinced that I could make a garden and it nourished me by allowing me to nourish it. It was my mock success and I allowed myself to be deceived.
In the garden, a weed is the plant that will not bear fruit. It will take the nutrients from the soil. It will absorb the water. It will fan out its leaves soaking up sun while letting other leaves wilt in the shade. We gardeners have many enemies. They are the forces of evil in the garden. They compete against the forces of good. (Water, soil, sun) But these are not really the sources of good; they are more accurately the sources of life. Oh, how life comes running to the sources of life. I suspect good gardeners have always known this. We are divine in this world. We can forgive life its greediness when we are mediocre, when the tilled soil only modestly produces. What are a few bugs or weeds in such a setting?
But as we have a bumper year, as we achieve our goals, life comes exploding onto the scene and it must me tamed and put into order. Gardening at its finest and most productive is not cute creation it is acting as God or gods. Today this responsibility bore down on me. This tells me my silly mind is acting figuratively; I counter that this is literal.
Back in winter, I purchased seeds and containers and started growing. I nudged shoots to the surface and cooed as if I had created babies. The family cheered on these plants as they became sturdy seedlings. Early, but not too early, I took these plants out and placed them in the garden. I watered them, some began to flourish, but immediately most began to die. Then all but two or three were dead. In reality all but one was dead, but I was being hopeful and I saw you as bean plants.
One tomato plant and one cucumber plant survived this vegetative holocaust. I took it personally. For round two, I bought fancy garden soil, retilled, and fairly hastily scattered a host of seed throughout the garden. I was disappointed and this seemed like a half-hearted last try.
But there you were, vines, near (but clearly not exactly where) we had planted the green beans the first time. And I bought bamboo poles for you to climb and oh did you climb. It was in nurturing you that I kept up my enthusiasm for the garden. Wherever I led you went. At the same time, you seemed such a good omen as the rest of the garden took off with new growth and life.
You seemed to be giving me everything I needed. But it the end it will not matter unless you bear fruit. It was your sister who gave you away. See, we did not buy any new morning glory or moonflower seeds in the front flower garden. But vines climbed up our trellis and covered it in leaves. I soon realized that your sister was neither type of plant, but it did occasionally show a light blue flower.
Weeks ago, you showed the first blue flower. What do I know? Fruit bearing plants have blossoms. I have seen those blossoms turn into cucumbers before my eyes. But no bean followed the blossom and it was the same flower as the one in front. I had been deceived.
You met my needs, and together we had an incredibly productive relationship. Yes that relationship was based on the promise that we would end in the salad days of summer with a bountiful harvest. You are barren, and to be fair, I allowed myself to create the deception. You never promised me a bean garden. That is what I promised myself from you.
We have come along way. We took a bland, brown patch and turned it into almost a vegetation theme park. With your help, we made tents of bamboo poles and twine and vines went hither and thither merrily around the garden. From that joy, I see my disappointment more clearly. Today I decided that our partnership must end. The rules of the garden are that you must bear fruit. Scarce resources must be reallocated to those special plants that can. See we have a caste system here. Weeds can survive but when they thrive they are spotted and plucked.
I was surprised what a heavy heart I went about my task with. Was it the deception? Did I feel shame for having been duped so long? No, I think it was that when you create something, even when it isn’t what you wanted, it is still creation. We made something that exploded into being. It was wondrous, but it was false.
It was only with difficulty that I was able to make my first assault. I intentionally drew it out by working at the top of the bamboo poles working down. I wondered at all of the ways you had to create and perpetuate life. I saw how you were winning out against the cucumbers and the green beans in several places. I saw how you had worked into almost every corner of the garden.
I would call myself your destroyer if I didn’t know that was to arrogant.
I sadly, untwined and pulled and tore at you. I know you still exist, but it is now my task to see to your destruction. In the end you were not good for me, even if you did meet my needs in the springtime. But the summer the garden is for fruit and fruit you are not. In the vacuum created by your first shearing and tearing, I tethered green beans to the poles and floundering cucumber vines to the string.
I was amazed by your strength and your ferocity. Many places I chased you, you hid behind the fruit bearers to try to trick me into destroying them. I’ll concede that to you. You are in the garden and likely will not be completely rooted out. But you cannot take the brightest light of the sun, cannot dominate the I-beams of the landscape in my garden. You do not belong here although it is your home. You garden god (gnome more like it) has deemed as long as you lay low, you may remain. But where you steal the sun and the rain, you will be executed.
O, this gardening seemed light-hearted, again pardon my naiveté. It is serious stuff and it copies the harsh conditions of life more than I had dared to fear. I am beginning to feel more like the hunter than the gatherer. I am the tamer of the garden and I will sacrifice its fruit that I have commanded to be grown.
Yet in my moments of grace, I believe I will thank you for your sacrifice. It did not have to be made. I believe I may yet apologize several times as I eat a beautiful cucumber and tomato salad or green beans sautéed in garlic. I went to the garden to escape. Instead I dwelt on philosophy and wrestled with the hardest of questions before humanity.
The cucumber tasted sweet and right. Hopefully it will be the first of many tender prizes wrought from my garden. |
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