A little dirt under the fingernails is a badge of honor in springtime

                        
Last week, I planted flowers using a croquet mallet and a Frisbee. Not your normal digging implements, obviously, but then again, I’ve done my best to steer away from the expected, the routine and the rational for many years. It’s just part of who I am and, to quote Van Morrison, “it’s too late to turn back now.” My wife and I live in a development that places extreme value on the way a piece of property looks. Residents compete -- and I’m not making this up -- for an honor called Lawn of the Month. It is, to these mostly retired, mostly Northern, mostly quiet and respectable folks a way of, I suppose, putting down roots in a place that they’ve probably come to consider home. I talk with them, sometimes, and one of the things that always seems to come up is their sense that this destination, this place, is it. “This,” they’ll say, spreading their arms to encompass their fine homes and their impressive lawns and gardens, “is the last place we’ll ever buy.” And I understand that. I can even respect it. But that’s not how I look at this neighborhood, this gated community, this part of the state, even this part of the country. I’m just passing through. True, it’s been nearly a decade since my wife and I left all that we knew and all who loved us to start again in Eastern North Carolina. And, equally true, we’ve been here a lot longer than either of us ever suspected when the moving van drove away just before Thanksgiving Y2K. We’ve talked often about that sight, that last vestige of home hitting the highway -- our movers were Ashland guys, from families we’d known forever -- and we agree that it’s been a good decision. “At least,” my wife will say, “we didn’t just head back right away.” “No,” I’ll say. “We’ve made a stand.” And it’s always in that spirit that every Mother’s Day weekend since we’ve been in Fairfield Harbour, that we shop for flowers. It’s become one of my favorite traditions, right up there with taking World Series week and turning it into a beachfront vacation. October isn’t prime time along the Atlantic ... you’d be surprised how affordable houses are and how empty most of the restaurants and shops continue to be. Splendid isolation, to lift a phrase from the lamented Warren Zevon, who -- if I might be so bold -- deserves a place in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. He was that good. But the trip to select and purchase each spring’s selection of flowers is only half the battle. I have very little to do except to pull the low-lying cart between the aisles of flora and reach, when my wife can’t, to the top of a stacked display, where the ones she wants are almost invariably located. I like getting my wife things that are just out of her reach. Makes my 6-5 height feel more useful, somehow important. “Got it,” I said, bringing down a flat full of yellow or orange or red flowers that she wanted. “No problem. What’s next?” Potting soil. Hanging baskets. Planters both oval and rectangular. And the almost endless variety of flowers, all of which please my wife’s eyes and, as all husbands know, that’s among our chief responsibilities. “Whatever she wants,” I said to the young man who, four years ago, was about to marry my niece. “That’s what you do.” He looked a little shaken. “It’s quite simple,” I said, putting my arm around his shoulder. “Only three words. Repeat them to me, please.” “Whatever,” he said, staring at his sneakers, “she wants.” “You got it!” I said. “Now, let’s have a cold one.” A year after that, of course, it was I who was about to be married and my niece’s husband pulled me aside. “You know what I’m going to say,” he said. “Yep,” I said, staring at the ocean that would form the backdrop for my wedding day, the best day of my life. “Repeat the words,” he said. “Whatever she wants,” I said with a smile. “It’s really very simple.” “You’ll find out,” he said. And so it was that I found myself with hundreds of flowers to plant the afternoon after Mother’s Day. I like the ritual, the creative orderliness of arranging flowers in their pots and, especially, the satisfying feel of the soil between my fingers as I imagine the way my wife will see the results of my labor. But, after four hours of work, I discovered that I still had some plants without homes. These, I decided, I would plant in the ground in the backyard. My wife had, after all, talked about a sort of memorial garden to our late parents and this seemed like the perfect time to surprise her. However, as I soon discovered, I didn’t have a trowel. I didn’t have a spade. I didn’t have a shovel. In short, all I had were my hands and feet ... and my brain. The soil down here is pretty much sand-based. It’s easy enough to start a hole just by using your toes, kicking back and forth. But I needed depth and I needed diameter. For the former, I used a croquet mallet. For the latter, a Frisbee. You’d be surprised what you can do with implements like that. With David Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust blasting from the boombox, I soon fell into a deep-seated, soulful rhythm, one that carried me past the obvious obstacles -- what grown man doesn’t own a shovel, after all -- into the satisfying realm of improvisational gardening. To look at those flowers today, you’d never guess that it all began with a kicking sneaker. Then again, you probably wouldn’t believe how much that garden has pleased my wife. We probably won’t be winning any Lawn of the Month awards, but her happiness is beyond anything I could have imagined. Mike Dewey can be e-mailed at CarolinamikeD@aol.com or snail-mailed at 6211 Cardinal Drive, New Bern, NC 28560.


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