Despite the slight drizzle this morning after a decent rain, I am out in the garden doing a bit of weeding. Of what I’ve already read on my computer travels this morning, something strikes me as I go down the rows haunched over the herbs. The below is from Steve Ersinghaus’ latest entry on the Reading the Tea Leaves series:
"1. All people are readers in the broad sense. The gardener reads the garden; the traveler reads the landscape; and the engineer reads the particular system.
2. In the professions, people maintain various reading competencies given their relevant knowledge contexts."
As I weed, I am thinking about how I am reading the soil, the dill, the crabgrass. All the years of gardening have taught me to recognize most weeds and vegetables from the time they are only about an eighth of an inch high. I know that weeds sprout and grow faster than most desirable plants, and can soon overtake the especially slow-growing herbs. I used to use a trick in sowing rows, tossing in a few radish seeds along with the rest because they come up quickly and will mark the rows easily before the rest come up. It works, but this tool was interfering with the slower basil; radish grow so quickly that they push everything out of the way, and by the time you pull them, you are as well destroying the basil. The tool then becomes a blockage to good growth, it is in the way.
I have developed my sense of recognition of the "good stuff" to the point of seeing the tiny glossy leaves of basil, the two long thin starting leaves of cilantro, the feathers of dill, just as they are emerging from the ground.
I am becoming a more discriminating and alert reader of the garden through experience and storage of the information I have learned.
The Lost Children: A Charity Anthology
This was beautiful, susan. It allowed me to accidentally slip into a world in which I’m unfamiliar (my hands have not been in soil for far too long), yet somehow it felt vaguely reminiscent of something I once knew. “The feathers of dill” made me practically inhale the moist earthiness as the tiny feathers began to emerge. I could see the green against the earth, and it felt very satisfying and authentic.
Just words on a page, but still, they can transport and educate.
A reader of gardens; a reader of people. The arched brow, the quickening breath, the failure to look eye to eye … these are the feathers of dill in my world. This little illustration allowed me to recognize that everyone (yes, everyone) is a reader on some level, and with this knowledge, their memory bank grows. Their expertise continues in this direction. Lifelong storage of relevant data, and each new experience simply adds to the conglomeration of information that defines their available data.
I read people. And sometimes, when I’m lucky, I read the writing of some talented writers. They show me that even on a grey day, there is information to be gathered, and stored.
The garden continues to share its precious bounty.
Weblog as garden. Perfect.