The Garden

It is June, and we are settling into summer with ease. The mornings are brilliant, the afternoons sticky, the evenings practically paradise. And I finally feel like enjoying life again.

Not only did summer bring relief from constant nausea, it also brought us a lovely plot in the local community garden. We had already started a wee stoop garden...a wine crate with lettuce and radishes, two buckets of Tumbling Tom tomatoes and tins of basil, cilantro, mint and rosemary. But now we have real riches. Ten by fifteen feet of real dirt! This last weekend we poured body and soul into that dirt, and are now waiting anxiously for carrots and beets and beans, parsnips and cucumbers, kohlrabi and squash and marigolds. We were also given four tomato plants, two basil, six kale and two cabbages, which seem to have survived our novice touch thus far. I cannot even say how much joy this tiny bit of land has given me already. Just washing our filthy jeans and T-shirts after the long hard day of tilling and planting made me feel a bit more solid. Cleaner, even. Difficult to explain unless you have ever had dirt on on your knees and a blister on your hand and something to show for your work.