What's coming up

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It’s June, which means I spend hours a day on my knees in the dirt. I pull weeds, I shake the soil from their furry fingers, I try not to squish the worms. Then I push the wheelbarrow and till the compost and make the rows and plant the seeds. It’s endless and laborious and absolutely joyful.
I’ve been thinking about the joyful part. Why am I so full of joy with aching shoulders and stained knees, bug-bitten and weary? There are theories—something about microorganisms in soil, for instance. And of course it feels good to grow food and to see the baby green sprouts poke up like a cute new friend.
For me, I think the joy comes from the concrete effort of it all, the measurable task. This many bags of compost up to the garden, this many loads of weeds off to the heap in the field. I feel like a physical being, not thinking, just doing.
How restful.
I love my work as a writer, but some mornings, as I stare down a blank page and chase after a vague idea, it feels formless and surreal. The cliché about writers being really good at cleaning their houses is a cliché for a reason—we seek opportunities to get up from our desks and perform a concrete (and finish-able) task. Writing gets finished eventually, but when? Where is the marker, the pile moved from here to there, the dust obviously swept.
The garden hardly feels like a finish-able task, but there are many moments of accomplishment, every day. I watered the peas. I re-seeded the fava beans. And I remember I am a human animal after all, dirty, exhausted, and content.
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Speaking of concrete tasks, I have a show coming up this summer on PEI that is about the opposite of gardening! It is about seeking meaning and meandering around in my head, it is not concrete at all!
- Tanya