Month: May 2021

In My Salad Days

When I am working in the garden, I tend to go into a meditative state. All kinds of memories and thoughts rush through my head like water in a colander and I try very hard not to ruminate about why these things are presenting themselves today.

As I was on my knees pulling at a gnarled root, I suddenly recalled from many years ago, an older gentleman who was always working in his garden as we drove by at 7:30 am on our way to work.  One morning he was toting a  kettle, still steaming in the morning chill and carefully doused all the tough, roots-of-iron weeds that lurked between the sidewalk cracks.

“God, what a loser. Talk about having no life,” my Starter-Husband commented, shaking his sleek head still damp from the shower. “Take me, I’m done.”

I’m sure that I laughed in agreement, probably applying lipstick in the pull down mirror of our Subaru as I watched the little man in his tweeds disappearing slowly from view as we sped away. Starter Husband and myself were both in our twenties at the time: we attended designer gym classes with a personal trainer; we were well acquainted with Clinique’s 3-Step cleansing program and apparently, smugly incapable of reading that man’s situation in any other, more complex way. I am deeply ashamed and tearful when I think of that old man now.