I was weeding our front yard/garden today when my neighbor walked by on her way to her car. I looked up and she said, "I don't know why you bother."
She meant it humorously but I was embarrassed for a split second as I knew that hand-weeding our entire front yard in bare feet looked a bit cuckoo. The garden was covered completely in a thick blanket of clover with cheerful neon yellow flowers, which I've enjoyed this past month as much as the bees. I bounced back from my brief self-consciousness by responding with the truth, that working in the garden on a day like today, 70° and sun shining with my daughter snacking on tangerines and periodically throwing stuff at me "because it's prank day", was actually really therapeutic for me regardless of what I accomplished or how long it took me.
What she still doesn't know, what none of my neighbors know yet, is that there are hundreds of flower seeds under that nice damp workable soil. I planted them months ago in the cold and wet, anticipating that by mid February I'd be feeling the slog of winter and would need something to lift my spirits, something pretty to look forward to.
It took me several hours to rip up the clover and chickweed and grass by the fistful, shaking the loose soil from their roots and tossing them into the mountainous green pile on the sidewalk. At one point, after clearing a few chunks, I spied what looked like the foliage of baby cosmos, and then I saw the very first wee flower. The tiniest cosmo that ever was. A few moments later I spotted feathers and the head of a small bird. A dead bird, but fully in tact, like it had just crawled into the thick forest of clover and weeds to sit down and die. How noble, I thought. Peaceful.
I picked her up gingerly and set her at the foot of my tiny baby cosmo plant with its fledgling flower. A reminder of how the decay of yesterday nourishes the budding life of tomorrow. I scooped the ash from the fireplace and sprinkled it on top of the still damp soil with its face in the sun warming the seeds below ground. I've written so many letters at this point which I've never sent. One is even stamped, but will likely go into the fire and end up in this fertile graveyard where pretty things have already begun to grow.
My body is sore now and fingernails are holding onto a bit of earth. This is why I bother. To tend to what I've been given and let go of what is no longer mine.
Jaclyn Edds Konczal | February 2022