The First Layer

Inspirational song: The Glory of Love (Jimmy Durante)

In late February or early March, some young man in his early teens walked up on our porch, and asked to rake our leaves. I didn't employ him, not because I didn't want to encourage an enterprising young person who was interested in working to earn some money, but because the few leaves on my lawn were covering the flowerbed. I was leaving them there on purpose, as a blanket, to insulate my young perennials from late season snows, while they are still getting established. I turned the boy away, and left the leaves in place another six weeks or so. But now, the long term outlook is for a very warm April, so it was time for the leaves to go. I didn't get them all, but I peeled back the top layer. Now for the sun to warm the ground, so my hyacinths and daffodils will finally catch up to the neighbors' flowers.

This week is the first time I've gotten serious about gardening with the knowledge of why my energy and sun tolerance is so limited. It's so different, being mindful and pacing myself, rather than overdoing it the first day, staggering inside to collapse on the couch, and feeling guilty for two weeks while my tools sat outside in the rain and my bedding plants died in the nursery six-packs, while I failed to recover the energy needed to go out and finish the job. I didn't understand that there was a reason I couldn't keep up with my own grand plans. I had no idea that this was a real chronic illness and it was to blame for so many low spots in my life. But now, I took my time, and I waited until the sun was on the other side of the house before I sat down and hand-raked leaves into a trash bag. When I got tired, I stopped. I dragged the bag of leaves back by the compost pile, and I sat inside and rested. Now, I'm feeling vaguely tired, but it's late at night and it's absolutely bedtime. I'm not overstressed, and I'm not sunburned. Maybe I'm going to figure this whole lupus crap out after all.

I had much more success than that man did. He worked on the irrigation system all day, and I think he ended the day worse off than when he started hours ago. He has a frightening knack for piercing irrigation pipes with shovels and garden stakes. He's pretty sure he hit pipes numbers five and six today. There were at least two places where puddles of water were bubbling up under those raised garden beds when he tested the system, where he looked and looked for sprinkler heads before he built them. That beautiful brand-new raspberry bed has to be dug up in the middle to fix one of them. I'm so glad it isn't my job to figure out the sprinkler system. It was beyond me.