For the last few weeks, I've known my garden was overrun with weeds. I'm
sure it had been steadily getting worse, I must have seen it before then,
but I had largely bkeeping it from my mind. Sometime during the
fall, the last stalks of the mustard greens had dried up with their rattling
seed pods intact and I had managed to lie to myself till nearly the end of
winter about my plans to harvest the seeds. In the meantime, everything I
had planted was lost under the tall grasses.
These are the things I do when I'm overwhelmed. I push things out of my
mind; anything not in my top-five priorities at the moment gets put on hold:
"sorry, all our operators are currently attending other crises, please stay
on hold and someone will be there to assist you shortly." Sometimes, I can
manage a distraction or two, but it's always a habitual one, like Twitter or
installing some obsolete operating system. I don't call my family, I skip
meals, and I *definitely* don't tend to my garden.
On Friday, I resigned from DSA SF's Steering Committee. My reasoning for
this is complex and deals with a lot of internal conflict that people who
aren't members of the org would assuredly find baffling. But it essentially
boiled down to the fact that I was worn out, and I needed to not be worn
out anymore. The garden was evidence of that, grass growing up to my
shoulders, taunting me whenever I walked into the side yard.
So, on Sunday, I got to work. Gloves on, garden boots, clothes I didn't mind
getting covered in mud. My partner was playing video games when I came in
after my first survey and I told her I may have to start over. There were
herbs I wanted to save, but the weeds just seemed like they were too much
to handle. Regardless, I got to work, and tried to salvage what I could.
After an hour, there was a pile of plant detritus up to my thighs, and I was
starting to see th things I had left neglected for nine months. New
mustard greens and arugula were coming in; I ripped off a leaf and tasted
it, vaguely peppery.
The lemon balm had even managed to spread in the shadows, crowding out the
spearmint to get at whatever sunlight it could in the shade of the weeds.
I smelled it before I saw it, a citrus scent that cut through the muddy
smell of dirt. More digging to realize the spearmint was lost, but with
another mint plant growing in a different part of the yard, this was a loss
I could stomach. After clearing more grass, the lavender appeared, pale,
struggling, but present. The raspberry bush lost most of its lower leaves in
the weeds' shade, but they were starting to grow new ones above it.
Most everything was saved. I felt guilty for the last season's neglect,
but there's a warmth that settled over me when I realized how little was
truly gone. This week's schedule includes plans with friends I haven't seen
in months; I suppose I'm hoping for more lemon balm than spearmint.
