Getting Your Hands Dirty
They say that you can never really go home. Who the fuck are "they", anyway? It's hard to shun my pinstripe pants and styled hair... but when I did, I wrapped a bandana around my head, put on a dirty white A-shirt, and cut a pair of jeans; I dropped the collegiate language and began to say "good" instead of "well"; I wore no makeup and laughed the laugh that only those closest to me are aware exists. Then I destroyed something that has been part of this house for years.
Kneeling in my makeshift garden clothes, I ripped the roots of an old rose bush out of the ground with my bare hands. I cut my fingers a few times, but it felt great. After an hour or so, a pile about four feet tall sat on the ground beside me: my knees were dirt stained, my fingernails screamed and my cheeks burned from smiling so much. I remember when those things were planted...and I remember when everyone made the decision to let them die. Each year, they come back and grow wild along the bricks and those sons of bitches are very difficult to remove from a brick wall... Whoever thought of climbing rose bushes: I hope you bled to death.
After a cold beer and a cigarette, I brought all of the trash and dead rose vines to the back of my grandfather's vegetable garden. I assume it will blend into the compost pile back there and I will use them to fertilize the daisies, black eyed susans, and other perrenials I am planting for the summer. But ain't that how it always is? In order for there to be room for newer, more beautiful things... older things have to be pushed aside, and potentially used for the growth and maintanence of newer things. Learn from history. Always.
My hands hurt. So do my eyes. And my heart.
Too close.
Kneeling in my makeshift garden clothes, I ripped the roots of an old rose bush out of the ground with my bare hands. I cut my fingers a few times, but it felt great. After an hour or so, a pile about four feet tall sat on the ground beside me: my knees were dirt stained, my fingernails screamed and my cheeks burned from smiling so much. I remember when those things were planted...and I remember when everyone made the decision to let them die. Each year, they come back and grow wild along the bricks and those sons of bitches are very difficult to remove from a brick wall... Whoever thought of climbing rose bushes: I hope you bled to death.
After a cold beer and a cigarette, I brought all of the trash and dead rose vines to the back of my grandfather's vegetable garden. I assume it will blend into the compost pile back there and I will use them to fertilize the daisies, black eyed susans, and other perrenials I am planting for the summer. But ain't that how it always is? In order for there to be room for newer, more beautiful things... older things have to be pushed aside, and potentially used for the growth and maintanence of newer things. Learn from history. Always.
My hands hurt. So do my eyes. And my heart.
Too close.