This is my second time participating in the Secret Subject Swap with Baking in a Tornado. This month 14 different bloggers decided to particpate. We each submit writing prompts that are then swapped and interpreted in our own individual styles then we post them all on the same day at the same time for everyone to enjoy.
My subject was submitted by Dino Hero Mommy.
"As spring approaches what are you impatiently waiting to do? Why?"
...soil caked under my nails and between my toes
...sweat on my brow and soaking through my shirt at the small of my back
...green fingers and broken nails from pulling weeds by hand
...the swaying of tiny seedlings in the summer breeze
...parfum de plant de tomate (tomato plant perfume)
...the first blooms followed by the first pods and fruits
...a pot of green beans on the stove grown from seed to maturity
...squash grilled to perfection
...every meal graced by my own work
Thinking of Spring (which is already arriving here in Climax) brings on images of gardening, and I have been impatiently waiting to get all that started as the throes of winter have clung harder than usual this year in the South. Growing up, I never would have pegged myself to be a gardener, but for 4 years now, it has been the best therapy. Standing between the rows covered in green stains and dirt letting the first ripened cherry tomato of the season burst in my mouth is better than any pill I could ever take.
Perhaps it’s the work involved, the focus on the tasks at hand that keep your mind free from everything else, or maybe it’s the actual enjoyment of the spoils of your labor that does it. Maybe it’s all of the above. No matter what does it, springtime is planting time. It’s time to get dirty, to work my hands into the soil turning it by hand, to water and weed, to love every moment in the sun surrounded by bees and earthy aromas with weeds and dirt clumps stuck in my hair.
Springtime means working for myself and enjoying the fruits of that work rather than working for someone else. Every moment spent laboring in the South Georgia humidity provides my little family with another black eyed pea, another tomato, another green bean or squash. Every moment sustains us, nourishes us. No one reaps the bounty of my work but me and it feels phenomenal. I’m not getting paid by the hour to turn earth and pull weeds just to give the harvest over to a boss or an owner or a CEO or another asshat investor while I barely bring home a handful of beans for myself. It is all mine unless I choose to give it. There are no words to describe the deliciousness that brings to my life.
As Chuck Palahniuk eloquently wrote in Fight Club, “ I see all this potential, and I see it squandered. God damn it, an entire generation pumping gas, waiting tables – slaves with white collars. Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don't need. We're the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our great war is a spiritual war. Our great depression is our lives. We've all been raised on television to believe that one day we'd all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars, but we won't. And we're slowly learning that fact. And we're very, very pissed off.”
The work I put into my land changes that. It gives me purpose and a desire to be able to truly take care of myself without reliance on a job I hate and shit I don’t really need.
Springtime is revolution time.
Here is the rest of the linkups for this month:
http://www.BakingInATornado.
http://themomisodes.com
http://stacysewsandschools.
http://followmehome.
http://www.someoneelsesgenius.
http://thethreegerbers.
http://www.dribblesngrits.com
http://www.impoverishedvegan.
http://spatulasonparade.
http://dinoheromommy.com/
http://morethancheeseandbeer.
http://www.eviljoyspeaks.
http://www.JuiceboxConfession.
