Every time I close my eyes, I see the same thing. I see spears of green shooting out from a central point. I want to reach out and grab that center star, and yank it out of the dirt. This happens every time I get into the groove of pulling weeds. If I spend more than thirty seconds at it, I might as well be at it all day. I have been putting off cleaning up the front flower beds while every day was too hot and sunny, but today was overcast from morning until night. I thought I'd only do a little bit up front, mostly moving the pots full of kitchen herbs a little farther back under the porch roof, so they stop scorching. To make room, I had to move the potting soil that had been tucked away behind the tea olive, putting it back in the garage where it belonged. The steps needed to be swept, so I tidied that up. While I was at it, I was tired of seeing the black leaf and lawn bag that we had been filling with snapped-off spent geranium blooms and fast food trash that drunks keep throwing out of their car windows within wind-blowing distance of my house. I moved it to the garage too, and with it out of reach, I found myself filling it further, picking out a few random coils of vineweed out of the lavender bushes, or clumps of that spade-shaped scourge, whose name I have already forgotten. It's not calendula, or campanula, but it is something like that. Whatever its name, it is pure evil and it will take years to eradicate as long as I am not willing to glyphosate the snot out of it. Once I got going, I couldn't stop. There was a little crabgrass. Some dandelions. Thistles. Some sort of tree sprouts. I kept going, and kept going, and kept going. I filled up a handful and marched it over to the bag in the garage, then came back for more. I was obsessed, and inefficient. My calves ached, and I told myself I'd stop...after I cleaned out just this one spot. And then this one. I knelt on the porch and reached down to re-clean the area that I had completely denuded of weeds a month ago. I never bothered to tie up my hair, so I struggled behind the sandy curtain. I could barely see what I was after, and still I could not stop.
I am finding a way to be useful for all of my children this summer. After so long of being ill and upset and needy, it's awfully nice to feel emotionally healthy, physically adequate, and financially flexible. I prefer to be in the position of giver, of help, advice, money, time, etc. I don't like to be a taker. I'm working hard to help one of them now, I got to help create the wedding dress for another last spring, and next month I get to go see the eldest, for the first time at her home instead of mine. I feel like the world is right side up again.
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