hands in the dirt

 

I've been thinking about our garden lately. Last fall, on our final day before the end of the season, I planted eight rows of garlic and shallot bulbs. Now, with two or more feet of snow packed against the dirt, the day we'll pull them up feels pretty far away.

Last weekend Joe went down to the basement to get some potatoes left over from last fall. We thought we'd stored them in a dark and dry enough spot, but when he pulled the paper bag from its hiding place, we found all but a handful had sprouted. Useless. It wasn't just that, but a combination of things, including lack of time and the fact the garden is a 20-minute drive from our house, that inspired Joe to raise the question of not gardening this year. The garden was his idea in the first place, but I'm the one who's fallen in love with the process. Joe loves the results, and the theory behind learning to grow your own food, but he sees it mostly as a slightly enjoyable chore.

Last winter I might've agreed -- we'd had the garden for less than a season, and it was hard work on a very short learning curve. But last weekend, it wasn't up for discussion. I can't wait to have the house overflowing with vegetables in their bulging reds and shiny greens and the way the kitchen smells like fresh, wet dirt after bringing in the first big bag of tomatoes or lettuce or corn. I'm starting to know what I'm doing. 

Last spring, this was our garden plan:

 

This year I want to do things differently. I want to grow fewer things and space them more appropriately; I want to learn a new way of preserving what we grow. I want to learn more about composting, which we do, but certainly not as well as we could. 

The past two years, we were lucky to get seeds in the ground to grow, and we moved blindly from sprout to table, no safety net of prior experience to guide our way. I never thought I'd get excited over seed catalogs. 

Now here we are, moving an inch or two away from being true beginners, toward a slightly more certain center. And when I look outside my window and see a frozen lake and a dull gray sky, nothing makes me happier to imagine than green fields at mid-day and hot sun on your neck and an ache in your muscles that says you've done something good and real.

Older

Instead of New Year's Resolutions, I've decided to make Birthday Resolutions. The passing of one year of my own life seems much more meaningful than the random turning of the calendar.

Earlier this month, I turned 32. In the two weeks preceding my birthday, the following things happened:

1. I received a letter from my doctor, informing me of alarmingly high cholesterol.
2. I found my first gray hair.
3. I had a conversation with a friend, in which one of us said to the other, "You know, we're rapidly approaching the age when it's strange that we don't have children."

I've been thinking a lot about the passing of time lately and also the imperative to make moments count. Maybe not every moment -- I don't need to fondly recall the 30 minutes I spent in line at the airport ticket counter, for example -- but more of them than not.

They say 30 is the new 20. I hope 32 isn't the new 22. I don't want to be wandering aimlessly through the doorway of adulthood for the next 12 months. There comes a time probably for most of us, when we realize we know who we want to be. And we realize we have all the tools and powers to make that happen. And to not make that happen results primarily from our own laziness.

I want to be the kind of person who writes thank-you notes and sends tea bags home to sick co-workers and would rather take a walk with the dog -- under the sun, with wind on my face -- than watch old TV shows on DVD with the shades drawn. And lately, when I find myself hitting the "play" button on the remote control, with the blinds closed on a fine Sunday afternoon, I know I'm making a choice. The thank-you notes won't go out tomorrow. The dog remains unwalked. My world remains confined inside the walls of my living room.

JK and I were talking last night about the relationships we have, as adults, with our friends. When you live far away and lead busy lives and barely have time for your own family, friendships become valuable real estate. Sometimes ties become strained, and sometimes they snap altogether, for reasons of distance or time or inconvenience. The people who make your world a bigger, more enriched place tend to stick around. The others fade.

I'm thinking about this as a guiding principle for how to be the person I want to be: Does this decision or action or person expand my understanding of -- or impact in -- the world around me?

So this year, my Birthday Resolution (well, in addition to not eating as much cheese - check - and also to start exercising every day - check) is to live more deliberately, to make moments matter, and to choose paths that force me to live in the larger world, instead of staying tucked in my living room, with the television for company.