Paying A Different Kind of Attention

Just another Harvest, a photo by Taproot Garden on Flickr.

By this point it seems like a long time ago. Last September we moved to this property with a household's worth of packed boxes and a vision, excitement and more than a little apprehension over the implications of what we had done. Less than a year -- not so long when measured by the calendar, but an eon , all else considered. In the intervening months we have trimmed trees, cleared brush, planted trees, built a greenhouse, commissioned and planted a sign, designed a garden, ordered and planted seeds, cleared the target area, dug trenches, staked and strung a fence, and planted. Planting gave way to watering, weeding, weeding and watering, contending with rabbits, adding more fence, weeding and watering, watering and weeding, waiting and watching, watering and weeding. And weeding and watering.

There develops, in the practice of it all, an almost drone-like character to the tending -- a rhythmic, centering monotony only occasionally interrupted by a brief rain or a schedule conflict. Watering, weeding, observing the growthful progress. There was a certain giddiness over the progression from stem to leaf to flower to bud and finally that blush of color. But still there was the drone -- the weeding, the watering, the studious observation and the waiting.

There was that delicious euphoria at the first tomato plucked and the companion pepper snipped. But it doesn't pay to overly indulge in self-congratulation. A garden, I have learned, is like a river -- always moving, always in motion; a glacier, more like it, given the almost imperceptible pace, but moving nonetheless.

And the drone, I have discovered, is hypnotic. I get out early to preempt the heat, barely shaking off the sleep, yank the standpipe's handle, will my palm into compliance with the shape of the hose, and set about the routine. The drone buoys me along the paces, watering and then weeding, noticing.

Suddenly I realize I am missing something important: the harvest. After those initial offerings, I have slipped back into routine, forgetting the "moreness" still and inexorably ripening -- the payoff of all the effort.

So each day now I remind myself to actually pick something -- to allow myself a momentary arrival in the midst of this ongoing journey; the crunch of a fresh raw okra, the juice of a ripe tomato dripping off my chin, the spicy bite of a pepper just off the stem.

And in so pausing, to step out of the lulling drone and pay a different, more flavorful attention.