On a trip to the library a short time ago I noticed a short, stout looking man in his forties working outside the library redoing flower beds and planting new scrubs. A local landscaper employed him to do the really dirty hands-on-work of the business, supplying him with all the tools and a truck to use as he diligently was making a difference in the appeal of the old library building.

I avidly went through an armful of books every week and had been doing so for years. It was on my next visit, as I returned the armful of books and checked out another armful, that the man had worked his way around to the entrance. As I was leaving, he looked up from his scrub planting, grinned and shook his head as he noticed my bounty of books. Wondering what the grin and the head shaking was all about I deposited the books in my car and wandered over to the landscaper and struck up a conversation.

He was actually very friendly, telling me that he once was like me, read all the time, but was now enjoying his work with plants so much that he had not read much in years. I explained that I thoroughly enjoyed reading and could not imagine a life without books. He replied with a very friendly encouragement to do what makes me happy.

As a matter of fact he explained we were both doing something similar. I was digging into books and creating a mindscape that was very rewarding as I viewed the amalgam of many years of reading. He was digging into soil and with the help of plants and rain and sun was creating a landscape that rewarded him and others with beautiful scenes of flowers and greenery. So we were both diggers.

All these years, he noted, I had culled whatever I’d learned that didn’t go toward the best of my mental imagery and had cultivated and fertilized with thought that which I had wanted to keep. An especially good work, he added, if I shared with others what I’d put together. I agreed with him that there were many similarities in what we were doing. I bragged on his skills and told him the library grounds were in the best shape I’d ever seen them.

Then my new found friend went a little deeper into talking and thinking, much deeper than he’d went all day with his digging. As he leaned on his shovel and wiped sweat from his face with a towel hanging from around his neck, he began to talk about dirt . I eventually realized he was rendering to me a philosophy of dirt.