Garden of Eden

This morning was a bit drizzly and gray. I am starting to appreciate these types of mornings. They send the message, slow down, breathe, the weather is not cooperating anyway. I also am enjoying each time it rains because I can see what a change it brings to my vegetable garden. Yes, I am growing vegetables for the first time. I am not sure how I got the inspiration to do this. Perhaps it is because I am not growing anything in utero this year and I was feeling a little unproductive. Who knows. I try not to go to deep into my psyche to explain myself. The people who do this bore me and I fear I will never emerge from those depths. I fear I will walk around boring people with overthinking about myself, around myself, through myself. Yuck.
When I told my husband that we were growing vegetables he protested with, "But we can't keep anything alive!"
I shot back, "That is silly, we have a human baby and two cats."
He fell silent but I could see that he was thinking about the failed, thirsty house plants that I buy every year. I am sure he even remembers the cactus I killed in college. To my credit or discredit, I used that cactus as an ashtray for about 6 months before it sank into a mound of prickly goo.
One thing about my husband, he will protest but he never says no. In fact, the early spring ushered him to rip up a 36 square foot area of grass, till it, and border it with pretty bricks. I planted the seeds. On the day I saw my first sprout, I was asked to draw something in nature that inspired me during my women's spirituality group meeting. I drew that sprout. I held it up to the group and explained, "I see a lot of hope in this sprout. I hope that it means I will be able to spend less money at Whole Foods soon."
All of the women in that group are at least 30 years older than I am. I love the company of older women. They are not so caught up in the becoming and the striving and the perfecting like us 30-somethings. They simply like to be and they loved my sprout.
Now that sprout has turned into an awkward, gangly, oversexed garden. It reminds me so much of a hormonal teenager that I sometimes blush when I look at it. There are bees and beetles and birds and butterflies all having a field day, and that is what is only happening above the ground. I didn't know there could be so much energy in a patch of earth.

I have decided that if the United States was a plant it would be a cucumber plant. My cucumber plant has decided to take over, and I don't mean it just nudges by throwing out golden arches and coca-cola machines in empty spaces. No, this plant wants all of the other plants to become cucumbers. Yesterday I was harvesting snap peas with my husband when he pointed to a dangly area of the pea plant that was of a different green, "What is that?"
I sighed, "I think it is cucumber that used to be a pea."
Oh, and talk about defenses! If you have ever touched a cucumber plant anywhere--the fruit, the stems, the leaves--you will know that you get a hand-full of microscopic needles that you can feel all day.


I do love my tangled mass of growth, and it has taught me a lot. Life does emerge from dirt if you are hopeful and patient enough, and the life that emerges is forgiving. It simply wants to grow and give, and rest when it is time to rest.

And yes, cucumbers can coexist with other growing vegetables as long as they are planted...well, at least an ocean apart.

A Great Cup of Coffee

This morning I decided that I deserved a cup of Starbucks coffee while I ran errands. I was still groggy from my Valium-induced sleep from the night before and I was shaking off the tale end of a fever--courtesy of the girl petri dish that I gave birth to a year ago. I felt that the $1.55 cup of coffee was totally justified. Plus Starbucks coffee gives me a caffeine buzz that I can't seem to brew by myself at home.
As I entered the store I was followed by a woman who was on the ripe side of middle aged dressed in workout clothes. I ordered "whatever your darkest roast is today, tall" from the female behind the counter and stepped aside. I was about to do the usual battle in my head about whether or not to use half-and-half in my coffee (there is a angel in my head that says yes and a devil in my post-baby pooch that says no), when a lanky male from behind the counter stepped up to help the woman behind me and nervously began, "remind me again..." The woman took her cue and recited, "caramel on the top, caramel on the bottom, low fat milk macchiato in between, no foam, no sugar, 192 degrees." Now, I usually mind my own business, but I could not help but turn to her and give her my best "having fun with that mental illness?" smile.
While I was doctoring up my steaming cup of coffee with a Splenda and no cream...devil one, angel zero...I realized I had a choice. I could so easily think that this woman was what is mostly wrong with the world. Well, besides George Bush and the fact that Lindsay Lohan gets more CNN time than the refugees in Darfur. My other choice was to realize this: The universe provides us with situations like these to carry around in our heads in case there is nothing funny on TV that night.

Good morning to you all.