Playing With Dirt

Yesterday, I dug my hands in good old dirt for the first time since childhood as far as I can remember. When was the last time I potted a plant? Had I ever potted a plant before? I couldn't recall, but as I sat on my haunches like a kimchi lady outside the photo studio where I work, using my bare hands to scoop out old dirt and replace it with the new soil from a pot of ivies and some pink flowers, I felt incredibly happy. This is what humans were meant to do-- work outside, work with the earth, use our bodies-- not sit in offices all day.

"I know you didn't go to college to do this type of work..." my boss said apologetically.

Stop right there, Faith! This is exactly the sort of thing I love to do. I spent an hour or more sweeping out the shattered glass, dead leaves and dirt from her back lot. Together we lined up all the trash we found there: garbage cans full of the leaves, dirt, and glass; a random bucket of sticks and old frames holding antique-looking artwork; a giant piece of glass; and a giant window frame with shards of glass still lining the inside rim of it. We propped a piece of dirt-clogged cardboard within this frame, and stood back, admiring our work.

"It's like art," I said, giggling. "Very Avant-garde." I wanted to take a photo of it, but resisted going inside and retrieving my camera. Instead, I moved on to gardening. I learned more about gardening that day than I had in the past nearly-26 years. The damp dirt underneath the dry surface dirt felt soft-- not quite like flour, but just as nice-- and looked so like crushed oreos that I felt mildly tempted to scoop some right into my mouth. Successfully resisting this strange urge, I immediately thought of the book, "100 Years of Solitude", because there was a girl in that story who only ate dirt. Oh Magical Realism. Other random thoughts floated around in my head as I crouched in the warm sunshine playing with dirt.