The seasonal clean-up has finally begun, and I’ve been slowly and steadily making up for such a late start with some back-aching work. Typically I fill about 40 lawn bags by the time the yard looks presentable, and this year looks no different. The main difference is how well, or not well, my body handles this annual exercise. Every spring it gets a little harder, the body bends a little less, the pain lasts a bit longer, and I get closer to the point where hiring someone will be a necessity, careful tending to tender perennials be damned. At some point I just won’t be able to do it alone, and the thought makes me simultaneously sad and relieved.
For now, it’s a meditative tradition, a moment of quiet where it’s just me and nature communing in silent fashion. The mad rush of thoughts and the dangers of thinking too far ahead bubble to the surface first as I awkwardly get back into the gardening groove, but soon I find a rhythm, and the Zen-like peace that comes from simple manual labor and the tick-tocking of a spring day. It reminds me of yoga – the way the beginning is always a jumble of crazy thoughts and worries as the daunting idea of cleaning up an entire yard of winter wreckage assembles and then slowly comes together as the days pass. I remember one of my first yoga instructors explaining that it was ok to have whatever thoughts were passing through my head – and it was best to acknowledge them, then let them pass by or simply pause. That’s always easier said than done, but with a task such as bagging up dead oak leaves and winter debris, there’s something to the mechanical process that allows the mind to shift focus and push the pesky over-analysis aside. Slowly, the yard gets cleaned and prepped for another growing season, and eventually the patches of what has been done outgrow the spaces that have yet to be cleaned. At that point the amending and mulching begins – a whole other task, a whole other tradition, and one more grounded in gardening than simple yard upkeep. But that’s still a way off. For now, we struggle through the basic winter cleaning that’s been put off for longer than usual. It’s catch-up time.
