kiwords: Love grows, despite me

A week ago my friend Amy asked me how my spring plants were doing in the garden.

"They're not," I said, shaking my head. "Three weeks ago I planted spinach and lettuce and sugar snap peas, and NOTHING."

She shook her head with me. So sad.

It's my fear, every year. I drop those seeds into the dirt, water, and watch. Can it happen? Just like that? And until they sprout, I battle a mounting certainty that this JUST WILL NOT WORK. How could it? Surely the birds have eaten the seeds, which were clearly old, bad seeds anyhow, and that one day when it got pretty hot and the ground dried up killed what feeble life there was in them. Yes, somehow it is my fault, and I have crushed the beauty that is the life cycle of spinach. So sad.

But then - did you know this was coming? - then something happened. I wandered out to the garden, to slice down a few more asparagus stalks. I glanced at my barren Spring patch, and my vision was snagged by a tiny spot of green.

Real green. New, fresh, just-sprouted green.

These are lettuce.

This is out of focus spinach. Actually, the picture is out of focus. The spinach is lovely.

This is flat-leaf parsley, which I didn't so much "plant" as "allow to happen." There were seed heads, see. And I LET THEM GO. Rrrowl. I love flat leaf parsley. I love the way it sprawls all over the landscape, wedging itself in inhospitable places, and thrives. I love to rip off a fistful of leaves and eat them, staining my tongue neon green. Clay says that's actually not sexy, but I'm pretty sure he's wrong.

And now I am as happy as can be. Suddenly it's Spring, really and truly. Last evening kids played basketball on blacktop still warm from the sun, and I sat by the window, feeling the breeze pushing in against me. Outside there were at least six basketballs in play, and the sound of them striking the blacktop reminded me of the sound of popcorn popping in a pan, just as the tempo picks up. In the garden, new plants are growing, and I am entirely blissed out on it all.