Beginning again

The ground was finally thawed, the bees were buzzing, the robins were singing. It was finally time to get started, yesterday.

This is the little backyard garden of our neighbor Marilynn. She has a double lot, and summer commitments which keep her elsewhere. It was mighty magnaminous of her to offer us the use of the space, but that's exactly what she did. And so, over the course of last summer, I was not only able to scratch my gardening itch, but also forge a friendship with my other neighbors (and garden cohorts) Jen and Corrine.

In my mind's eye, I'm envisioning the prospect of what's to come: towering tomato plants, great bushy crowns of broccoli, sweet bouquets of oak leaf lettuce. Can you see it? I could sit out there for hours and just envision.

I'm not sure you have to be a little nuts to have a vegetable garden. But I'm pretty sure it helps.

Oddly, pacing it out and marking measured squares is almost the best part, for me. Just like an architect dreaming up blueprints, conjuring the perfect, rainless, snowless world where his building will exist, pacing out the garden leaves me free to imagine that everything is possible. This early spring afternoon, I was meditating on the ideal garden: the one without bugs, or groundhogs, or the freak April snowstorm we're likely to get. But, living is nothing if not constantly reconciling: the real world, versus the dream you hold in your head. The bugs and the groundhog may come, an early snow may kill our first planting of lettuce. That's the chance we take. We do it anyway. On those rare instances when reality reaches the shore of your vision, lapping against it like a tide, well, that's what we live for. It is sublime beyond words.

So, here's to sunshine and rainfall, safety from vermin, and the promise in a seed. This year's garden is officially begun.