What’s the Rush

Photo: Rob Dirk

I am still connected to the habits of my pre-retirement life.

I time every event around here: cooking, cleaning, typing, gardening.

I think I need to make sure I get places when I am supposed to be there.

I think that if I make a meal I have to have it ready when the clock strikes 6 pm.

But really? For me? What is the rush?

So I have my lunch at 3 pm? That just seems to work for me. That feels good to just let my gardening life play itself out and gather up the tools and quit when I wish to.

This was not totally true yesterday when I had the battle of the blackberry bushes. Walking down the nineteen steps from the house to the road has become dangerous. The blackberry vines curve out on the stairs. Some secure themselves to ground close to the stairs and become a new bush full of thorns. Alice and Betty were sometimes afraid to walk up the stairs last year.

In an effort to protect the little girls this year, I put on some green gloves that are meant for working with prickly bushes. I suited up with a fleece hoodie and then put on a heavy-duty jean jacket on over it. I pulled my hat down low on my brow. I laid down a tarp to receive the cuttings. I cut back those bushes as far as I could, gingerly moving them one by one with just the tips of my fingers. I laid them all parallel to one another, just as Glen has taught me to do. This makes transporting any pile of branches easier.

The best thing about dragging the blackberry branches to the burn pile is that when I turned the tarp over and leaned into it to secure the load to the pile, I could feel the vines collapse into one another. I thought of how painful that would be, to lay on a bed of blackberry vines. When I pulled the tarp away, there was no slippage. The vines clung to each other – a bonus since I didn’t have to reach down and throw runaway ones back onto the pile.

I did hear myself say ouch a number of times during the cutting. Those little thorns could reach out and get me when I was least expecting to feel them.  Yes, they got their revenge.  Yes, I made the path safe.

Arta