At the Very Least, A Kick

I feel like I should pass out cigars.  Before leaving town on Saturday I slipped out to the greenhouse to water the seeds.  This, after all, is the disciplined season of gardening -- performing by rote the daily duties of nurture devoid of any visceral reinforcement.  You simply do it because you know it has to be done, trusting that somewhere down the line the benefits will be apparent -- maybe even tasty. 

That said, there is something almost meditative about the duty.  It is possible, of course, to simply hoist the watering can and mindlessly slosh the water over the thirsty cells, acquitting yourself of the task until tomorrow.  But I rather like to linger over the trays -- voicing encouragement, sprinkling gently, paying searching attention.  This is, after all, a kind of sacred time when subtle, almost miraculous transformation is underway.  I planted those seeds.  I know what they looked like as I fingered them into the soil -- tiny, nondescript nibs of silently infinite potential bearing the capacity to produce not simply a plant and its eventual fruit, but the seeds of successive generations.  All that, and my dreams as well. I watch and sprinkle that brown potting soil carefully; expectantly; prayerfully.

And so it was that the tiny, emergent sprouts in the kohlrabi cells came into view.  A birth, so to speak -- or maybe not so much a birth as the sensation of a foot kicking in the womb.  The sprouts have a long way to go before stretching tall enough, rooting deeply enough to be transplanted outside in the raw soil; a longer way to go, across the distant horizon etched with weather, sun, insects, nibbling animals and my own horticultural ignorance, to finally arrive at harvest. 

But it is a gloriously giddy start. 

And just to punctuate the moment, upon arriving home last evening and taking up once again the watering can, I noticed yet another sprout -- a red cabbage, red enough to almost disappear against the backdrop of soil.  But being careful in my watering...

...I noticed.  Feel free to light the cigar.