Xanadu

Xanadu
In Xanadu did Kublah Khan a stately pleasure dome decree

Tuesday, April 16, 2019

Gardening in the Dark

Early May -- It’s been a rough few weeks with work stress and allergies/ asthma. Unable to leave, unable to breathe, coughing fits so hard I was having Middle Aged Lady problems.  Not happy. A week of steroids got Me human but not fixed. Acupuncture helped for about 36 hours and then I was backsliding. I learned there is an FDA approved “medical food” for asthma (naturally not covered by insurance), realized I could get the same stuff with supplements (EPA) and grass fed beef (DLA). Hit the algae based EPA hard, woke up to today and felt... like DOING something. Checked the weather, found good breathing conditions, ventured out.
Maybe it’s just the weather, or the EPA, or the acupuncture, or a super delayed assist from the steroids, or a combo. Maybe the fact I am unplugging the powerful wifi router inside My Faraday-Cage house when I’m not streaming makes a difference to My clarity.  Somehow, today I felt like me again for the first time in weeks. I bought 16 cubic feet of good dirt and 6 of cedar mulch, loaded it in the car Myself; unloaded it Myself; drank two coconut waters; ate almost nothing; and then Princess and MasterMe proceeded to happily do heavy gardening for most of six hours.  We didn’t stop until after 10pm, which means we gardened in the dark for quite a while. We even managed to dry-flip-dry-fold away the 10x20 tarp.  And then just as I was finishing creating some order from the chaos, the rain came.  A nice strong downpour, some wind and lightning.  It felt GREAT to have accomplished so much in the perfect window I got today, and be rewarded with a spring rain.  Tomorrow everything I did will look even better.   After weeks of barely feeling alive, it was great to feel VITAL.

We didn’t quite realize both Master and Princess like gardening, but we do.  That means buying the house was significantly Princess’ idea; she wanted DIRT and to be able to make a FIRE for steaks and marshmallows.  Today she was looking at a little chimanea at the garden center.

Princess likes to use her body, she is interested in plants; she likes DOING schtuff; and she gets a real THRILL out of looking in the bathroom mirror and seeing she is FILTHY.  So Master had her shower before bed to not get the sheets dirty and keep the pollen outta bed. Princess enjoyed her shower, washing her dirty feeties with the brush; using the stripey big towel she got visiting john; putting on her super soft flannel Peanuts robe that she bought at Unkey’s suggestion; gently drying her hair with the special brush to make it FLOOFY.

It’s interesting to realize how much I enjoy getting dirty and getting clean.  I don’t enjoy showering for work, that’s a rushed chore much of the time, but I really love this slower post-garden process. Smelling the nice body wash, stroking My soft hair, the delight of feeling fresh and clean and soft and fragrant.  For so long hygiene was a Should and one I faintly resented wasting time on. So inefficient to have to bathe, such a waste of time. 

What I notice lately is that it doesn’t feel like a Should, or another annoying obligation.  I’m not imposing an activity on Myself from the head down.  Lately the motivation to do things like this - self care - come bubbling up from below, and they float Me.  There is a lightness to it now. A Joy. They feel good, delicious even.  I have been missing out, but Princess understands.  This is rapidly becoming a good litmus test for how Princess is doing.

So the tomatoes are in, herbs planted.  The planters are for the first time completely full of dirt and grow bags to organize things. The weeds are pulled, gap lined with newsprint, the space filled with cedar mulch level with the retaining wall; that should fix the annoying and persistent weeds. The lilac is blooming, staked, mulched. The cold frame infrastructure disassembled for summer.  The ginormous unwieldy wet muddy tarp dried in time over the fence in the dark; folded in the dark; rolled up alone, bungee corded, put away all the bags and debris gathered.  All that remains is to buy more of whatever I feel like, and to divide and plant the yellow flowers along the chain link to make it prettier.

It’s so good to work with My hands, to do tangible work with visible, gratifying results.  I need more of that.  And somehow gardening is a gateway to horniness. Not a bad thing.