They laugh when I start tomatoes indoors, under lights, in what seems like midwinter. After all, it isn’t even the end of February.  “She’s an odd one,” they murmur, “always going on about gardening. My God, have you looked at her fingernails?” 

     “You can’t grow tomatoes here. Too wet, too cold and the blight’l get ‘em for sure.” But come August, I’ll sit by the pond glinting in the sunlight, T-shirt gathered up, cradled snugly about fat red globes gathered off the vines. Summer in a sandwich. Taste buds at the ready, saliva let loose in intense anticipation, I laugh. I win the tomato race!

     Are there others out there like me?  Creatures of the earth, who eat, sleep and breathe just to garden?  Or, am only I, slightly insane?  In the bluff and the bluster of a frigid winter, wind rattles its tune on the panes, and rain washes roads clean off of mountains, plunging homes, cars and even lives ever downward into the valley bottom.  And where am I? Do I even care? There is no curling up with a blanket, a good book, and a mug of hot chocolate. Not for me. I’m hunched over a mess of seed catalogs. I read, and reread those books about gardens. Cutting, clipping, filing, and sorting. Orders are chosen, written, and then hopelessly tossed away. I want that, and these, and those. 

     I, who flunked Latin taught in the dusty thin light of a cold English schoolroom, had not listened to stories of armies marching across lands, and warriors fighting great wars. I, who chanted mindlessly, “Amo, Amas, Amat,” had learned nothing. Now, only now, do the phrases roll off the tongue. Lavatera trimestris, Origanum vulgare; physalis, grandiflora, camassia cusickii. Is this a sickness, an affliction, a curse or a blessing? 

     From a blank canvas of sod, invaded by blackberries, I alone created my garden. Honeysuckle, roses, beds of asparagus; strawberries just waiting for cream.  Friends shared their seeds and their “starts.” I dreamed of a pond, so I just started digging. Now there are fish, surrounded by “just the right rocks” found wading cool rivers. Then there’s coffee and bagels eaten al fresco, accompanied by bird song in early morning. Bees do their thing on the dahlia blossoms.  I laze on the deck, too tired to move, and drink in the beauty, the scents, the sounds. Hummingbirds feed, birds splash in the birdbath, and finches chatter and argue in the branches of cosmos.  Dragonflies hover and mate on the water, and goldfish flash by in the sunlight

     But still, in the meadow below there’s an orchard to plant, a grape arbor to build, and an olive tree needs a new home. There are steps to carve out, and rock walls to fashion, and paving to lay on the pathways. I’ll hack and I’ll clear, I’ll dig and I’ll plant.  There’s hydrangea to prune, and roses need moving; lettuces to seed under cool weather tunnels, and we still need to clean out the dark shaded woodlot. 

     Indoors, held captive, by the cold grip of winter, where is the relief, the respite from the hard labors of summer; the nurturing and tending done in the evenings, the sharing, preparing of fruits of the Autumn? I feel lost. Where is my cocoon? Can I no longer retreat, rejuvenate, refresh, as do plants that I cared for? 

     “Have you seen her garden? they ask, and they smile as I pass them.  “Don’t get her started” they mumble, “she’ll never shut up.”  Is there a cure for my sickness?  Don’t tell me I’m crazy, I know…and I smile.  I have my garden.