I like Missouri. There's land and family and roots and room to breathe and community and a church I love with people I love and a job I love. And life, life gets a little clearer with a garden around.
I dig up our yard every spring. I like to plant and watch things grow. It's a good thing, to work with your hands and get some dirt under your nails. I have a favorite spot in our yard by a rock where I pick a new annual to plant every year. This year I went to four stores until I found the seeds I wanted. And when you find the perfect plant, you need to buy the perfect soil, which took me to two other stores. I came home and dug out the gardening tools and my big grandma-esque gardening hat, and dug up some earth. I planted, watered, pulled out the weeds, monitored, watered some more, until finally three weeks later, out from seeds came a stalk and a bud, and this morning, a big beautiful dahlia.
It's also a good thing to see your efforts bloom.
I'm 20. I'm green. Not the environmentalist, save-the-planet-with-your-8-compartments-of-a-trash-can-green, but green as in new. Young. Inexperienced at life and always looking for a little direction. Gardening gives perspective. I get seasons. They make sense. It helps me understand growth, and what it means to wait for a good thing. And what it is when a good thing is at it's end. I understand what it is to plant, and to work for something. Gardening, well, the whole act of it is really just one big metaphor, isn't it?
