Gardening at the End of the World
A town 10 minutes away from us was hit hard by the coronavirus, crowning it the first “hot spot” in our state. As food, water, and toilet paper flew off the shelves, all I could think to do was to load up on dirt: - dirt, compost, manure, and maybe some sunflower seeds- all provisions, I thought, which were most likely, all I really needed to get through a month long, two month long, even lifelong, quarantine.
It was a Saturday night, and the streets were perhaps, for the first time in decades, devoid of people. What had rolled in to replace them instead was a thick layer of tension. Any car one might have seen on Rt. 4 that night was sure to have been reduced from a reliable form of transportation, to a paltry metal box, radiating panic from within. You could see it in the slight jerks the cars made: speeding without realizing it, veering out of lane as their minds wandered off imagining their own worst case scenarios, then jolting back to the present, a hair’s breadth away from an accident they just missed. Everyone was racing one another, racing away from something faceless, racing as fast as they felt they could and should, but with nowhere to go.
Up until this point in my life, the air was something I loved and cherished. But now, it began to take on the form of something awful- something full of worry, transmitted in the form of radio waves and human energy, intermingling on an etherial superhighway with invisible droplets filled with COVID-19 threatening to hover in the atmosphere for as long as they pleased, hanging themselves over all our heads. Overnight the precious air I breathed turned into poison.
When we arrived at the big box store, the parking lot that could hold hundreds, was close to empty, save for about 20 or so cars, which crammed themselves tightly into the spaces closest to the entrance. The sight elicited an immediate disapproving shake of the head. One would have assumed that by now, social distancing would have become extended to car parking etiquette, but oh, do humans still have a long way to go in learning the infinite variations of this #alonetogether theme.
The people exiting the stores looked no more relieved than those who were going in. Everyone eyed each other shiftily, trying to gauge something, but not knowing what. Are you more prepared than me? Do you know something I don’t? Mistrust and greed filled the air.
I made a beeline for the garden center, and for a moment, I was the only one there. B showed up a few seconds later with a flatbed cart. It was dark, poorly lit, as if it was assumed that no one in their right minds would be found there in a time like this. It was just B and I wandering around a huge, dark, greenhouse. We loaded up the cart with bags of manure, topsoil, and potting soil. We made jokes about how I would be the worst person to follow in the midst of a zombie apocalypse. Our laughter echoed in the emptiness. Through the glass sliding doors, I could see, blindingly lit, the indoor section of the store, filled with people zipping to and fro, grabbing batteries, light bulbs, flashlights, the extra “why not” gallon of water, and all else their imaginations concluded were appropriate things to stock up on for the impending unknown. By the contents of their carts, it was clear that the store had already long run out of toilet paper. Otherwise, the scene would have been something very different.
I had no mind for any of that.
In the dark, cold greenhouse, my biggest concern was whether or not I wanted to purchase and attempt to grow a monstrous looking sunflower named “Mammoth”.
When I arrived at the checkout counter, all the cashiers behaved in such a way that indicated to anyone who didn’t know better, nothing was different in the world. Perhaps a full day’s shift dealing with panicking customers had inoculated them to the frenzy in the air. My cashier, Diane, I still remember her name, casually counted and scanned my bags of dirt and seeds, and asked if this was my first time planting seeds. I told her that it wasn’t and she told me how lucky I was to have the space to do such things, as she herself had always had a dream to tend a garden, but had no way as of yet to acquire the means to do so. I began suggesting some tried and true unconventional places she could squeeze in some space for plants, but none of them seemed viable for her. I then mentioned that perhaps there might be a community garden which she could volunteer at, and she smiled at the suggestion. She told me that god had blessed me with the space and time to be able to partake in such wonderful things, and I agreed with her. She thanked me for my time, and I thanked her for hers, and then was on my way. I left feeling a mixture of joy- joy that amidst the unrest, I was able to still share thoughts and love with a stranger- and sorrow- sorrow over the fact that there was no outlet for someone who wished to partake in what ought to be considered an act most noble, and innocent, really, a basic human right: to tend to the earth, to care for the organism upon which our very existence depends.
As we walked out into the parking lot towards our car, we passed a group of people, who in a parking lot that in its emptiness feels like it can hold millions of cars, which now held only 5, had still managed to get into a car accident. The owners of the vehicles, so desperately focused on getting away from other humans, now, arms folded, stood near one another, discussing the details of what had just taken place. Police cars flashed onto the scene as we pulled out to start on our way home- police cars which held policemen, soon to exit their cars, walk over to the group, soon to share the air they each so desperately only want for themselves.
When we finally pulled into my driveway, a sense of relief came over me. I was certain throughout the entire ride home, some other car, also full of end-of-times wares, rushing home to isolate themselves from others, was going to veer out of their lane and crash into us. But this didn’t happen; and I was thankful for it.
I got out the car, and climbed up the stairs leading to the front door of my house so that I could look down at my yard and decide where it was I wanted to unload my bags of plunder. B waited on the walkway for my instructions, and I as I was about to call to him, a car came barreling down my street in our direction. It skidded to a stop right front of neighbor’s house, where it promptly shifted into making a U-turn, slamming into their basketball hoop stand, knocking the thing to the ground in a terrific crash. The driver then flipped the car back into “drive”, and rushed towards another neighbor’s house. He hopped out of the car, ran to the trunk, unloaded a large cardboard box, which he threw onto their front lawn, then zoomed off, disappearing in the night.
Everyone was losing it.
But I had no mind for any of that. I had goods to unload.
We brought out each bag of soil together, B holding two corners of one end, I holding the others. We walked in tandem to our designated spot, but couldn’t agree on the count upon which to drop them. He likes to say one, two, three, pause for a beat, then drop it; I like to say one, two, three, and drop it immediately. Perhaps in the time the coronavirus has taken to invade the air, it has also managed to, as a side-effect, alter our our sensibility of counts and beats. A strange virus for strange times- times that grow stranger by the beat…
***
I have a theory of where COVID-19 comes from. But perhaps that’s for another time and place. It’s the kind of theory that most people would feel lives best in the plot of a science fiction story. But for me, it lives at the center of everything I do. For the curious reader, here’s the heart of the thought: unbeknownst to most, the Earth is, in fact, a living, breathing creature- a wonderful creature upon which our life depends, a wonderful creature upon which our happiness depends. But to our negligence, this wondrous creature has now become a sick and exhausted creature, and this disease is the result of a trembling Earth, dying.
At the end of the world, if the point is to survive, then most certainly, I am not the person to stick with. But if at the end of the world, the point of this life has been to listen, and to love- then certainly to my own detriment, you will find me in my yard continuing to attempt to do just that: listening, staying in love, staying with love, one bag of dirt at a time, one sunflower seed at a time.
the very first sunflower I ever planted