A Little Therapeutic Violence

With the onset of spring weather (thankyouJesus!) comes a task as oddly therapeutic as it is daunting: moving the plants.

When we moved into our house three years ago, we put in a young apple tree and two big rosebushes. Over the next couple of years, we added five more rosebushes of varying types and sizes, plus a blueberry bush, a butterfly bush, and a small-but-quickly-growing strawberry patch. And two clematis vines.

Mom's yard is (a) large and (b) almost entirely grass; she and Dad were never really into the whole gardening thing. She's only too happy to have more pretty things (and less grass) in her yard, as long as she doesn't have to take care of them; so, we're transplanting. Everything. Yes, even the tree. Y'see, we planted that tree in memory of my Dad. Cancer got 'im three months after we moved into our house. So, even though it's gonna be a BEAR to dig up and move, and we're gonna have to rent a truck to do it 'cause I don't think it'll fit in a Saturn (!!!), the tree comes.

Meanwhile, last weekend we got all but three of the rosebushes up and out and transplanted; the remaining three are on tap for this weekend, and the tree next weekend (yes, that's Easter weekend...oddly appropriate, somehow).

I'm not sure how I learned to like gardening, but I do. While I get husband to help with big stuff (like the tree), I do all the rest of it myself. Something both violent and therapeutic about driving a big ol' shovel into the ground, heaving out the dirt, digging around roots by hand with a trowel, and let's not forget, slinging 40lb bags of fertilizer around the yard. (I was wondering how the conversation would go if I was stopped by PA's Finest last weekend: "Your trunk's riding a little low, what's in it?" "Five rosebushes, four strawberry plants, a blueberry bush, a butterfly bush, and 240 pounds of cow poop, Officer, care to take a look?" "Never mind...never mind...just...move along...")

I like getting dirty. I like feeling the soil on my bare hands. (I do wear gloves when handling cow poop, though.) I like looking beneath the surface of things and seeing all the roots and all the earthworms and all the bugs doing their thing. I feel very connected to life, to the pulse of the planet. I understand, when digging around in the dirt, the wisdom in the story of Genesis 2...where God physically came down onto this planet, got on hands and knees, scratched about in the dirt, made a mudpie, gave it a little CPR, and so created the first human. Two parts mud, one part God-breath. And we, made in God's image, garden after the same fashion, with a little love and a little wonder and just a little therapeutic violence. Shove that shovel into the ground, pop that bush out, roots'n'all, and move it. Bit of a shocker for the poor thing, but it'll do better in the end.