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NOT THINKING OF DIRT

Past Springs I've always trustingly bought my potting soil from local gardening supply places where each year they put out dozens of pallets of mind-bogglingly different brands, and each year, out of disappointment with the previous year's potting results, in the fresh new faith that comes with Spring I've tried a new brand so I've tried them all, and every one has been terrible, I can't readily imagine why anyone would keep selling potting soil that didn't pot worth a damn, but by the time you find discover that the potting soil is lousy it's too late, so you won't buy that brand again, you'll try another and in that way it keeps on going I guess, and someone gets rich. Then there's the "it must be the rain" or the sun, or I'm doing something wrong, which attitude tends to keep one entombed in the boneheaded realms.

Finally, though, I asked an upmountain neighbor who runs a couple of top quality nurseries in the region, and from whom I get my superb mulch, about this problem and he smiled knowingly, said all that mass production stuff was the pits; he had just what I needed, one type for planter flowers and one type for potting herbs and starting vegetables.

He delivered it all last night, at a neighborly price, and there they were all stacked up in the bright blue crisp and sunny morning, my fresh new bags of special garden mulch and fresh new bags of the best quality potting soil, and there I was all ready to dive into dirt and get my knees and fingernails grungy and drip sweat into earth but I had to go into the big city and meet people and sit at a desk and not think about dirt or compost for amazingly long stretches of time that are still stretching on even now, amid talk of clients and copy without looking too much at the sky out the tinted windows, no thoughts of seeds or buds, blank the mind to earthworms, moles, ladybugs; forget about birdsong and focus only on files and folders and sheafs of paper and jottings and doodles and keyboards and content production when all the while I can feel the trowel, I'm not doing too well at this not-thinking-of-dirt thing with all that blue sky out there and that warbler this morning