Digging in the dirt, they say, is relaxing. Putting your fingers into moist sand, part sand part clay, sandier the dirt, better the drainage, bigger the cottonwoods.
When we first moved to our house, Jim and I took a spring and dug up all the Bermuda grass. Growing like a network underground. They say, too, you can’t get rid of Bermuda grass, do your best then put cardboard down, dirt over that, start anew.
Jim’s wisdom less or more conventional, we built a screen, an old screen from a window with a two-inch frame. He threw shovels-ful of dirt onto the screen and I tamped all the clods out until each screenful was left with stubby hairy Bermuda grass, rooty and ugly.
We planted a native garden, and I forget the plant names. Except for Apache plume, something cotton, Snow-in-Summer, penstimens and sages. One sage we called “prairie,” but now I think of it as “rabbit” for how fast it multiplied. One year we had a section of Shasta daisies I was so proud of until I learned some people have fields of them.
In that yard are so many pieces of us. Our joint tamping like a native beat–ay, ay, ay, ay. Dirt and grass and seed, it’s indigenous to every one of us, I’m sure we’re all made of that if you break us down.
Roger’s buried there, in the front. Rudy, too. And there’s the peach tree we planted when Em was born. Both my girls came to us in the rooms with adobe walls, tall Mexican sunflowers the year Dee came, and with Em a transient season, a season of hope.
It’s hard leaving it all behind, and now as it approaches, the final sale, I can only cry and think this is natural, too. The dirt is still here, the ashes of my dogs long melded and turned to mineral. A plant will grow there even for the next family that comes. The peaches will be sweet, we made them so, and maybe even a Shasta daisy will grow in the spot I left it.
I have lived in the same house since since I was 1 yrs old– it has been over 18 years. I no longer permanently live there, but I could not imagine selling that house to another family. I tell my mom that she can eventually move out, as long as we keep the house.
It isn’t the biggest house, or the most luxurious. The area isn’t even that safe. But its the only house I can remember being in.
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Roger…he was a great dog! I didn’t like Rudy as much but he was a good dog. Rudy, had a different personality, maybe from his traumatic puppy-hood. Roger was definately the Alpha. Great dog!
It’ll be sad for me not to go your little paradise by the river. I loved that place. For being so close to a major city, it was very tranquil and quiet.
Jim…always thinking creatively. He’s an artist too.
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What do they say about moving? It’s up there with divorce as a life stressor. Some people take it all in ease–one of my sisters has moved about eight times. Not me.
Like Bex said, location might not even be that great, yet…it’s everything you’ve put into that house, everything that happened there.
Yes, mm, Jim’s an artist indeed. And Roger the best dog ever.
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http://pressposts.com/Art/PRACTICE-Digging-in-Dirt–10min/
Submited post on PressPosts.com – “PRACTICE: Digging in the Dirt – 10min”
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bex09, my mother still lives in the house I grew up in. And every time I go home I’m flooded with memories of everything that happened over all those years. It’s rich, fertile ground for memoir. It’s hard to imagine her living anywhere else.
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[…] -related to posts: haiku 2 (one-a-day), Ghost With A Green Thumb, PRACTICE: Digging in the Dirt – 10min […]
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