I am grateful for late season planting. It is still possible for peas and all sorts of lettuces, carrots, beans, zucchini, possibly even a golden cherry tomato if I’m lucky. Sometimes it takes me a while to get my seeds in. My soil. It’s a kind of second chance. I am thinking quite a bit about second chances today. I dig in the dirt. I squint a smile at the sun. I spray my hose at the cat tromping on my carrots.
Now that I’m a bit older, I run into all sorts of late planters, like me. Maybe it’s the show I’m doing, but I’ve been having many important conversations with beautiful messy human beings trying their damnest to create some kind of paradise. Getting marriage right this time around. Finally admitting they’re an alcoholic. Quitting that damn job and pursuing what they really wanted to do in the first place. Screwing up with the kids but putting in a really good effort with the grand kids. Discovering Buddhism. Discovering Christ. Discovering to hell with religion. Giving up smoking. Finally getting that f’in depression medication right. Deciding once and for all, it doesn’t really matter what other people think or what the statistics say or what the safer investment is: the damn thing is going to get done just because.
Just because I want to taste peas freshly shucked.
Some kind of strange little green worm crawled up from hell, through my floor boards, up my steel container, into my dark pure dirt and ate up all my kale overnight. Just around the time I was finally going to try making one of those “women in their forties balancing their PH” kale smoothies. Bastard!
I rip out the mangled leaves. The bad date. The slip off the wagon. The lay off. The snappy little snarl at an overtired child. The disillusionment. The cravings. The night of insomnia that throws everything off. The comment that hurt. Oh those little worms.
I dig at the earth, turn it, ready for a clean start.
Late season planting. I gingerly drop those tiny impossible seeds into the dirt. Dirt. Dirt. Good comes out of it. Amazing. I know. I know for sure, something is going to grow.
