I guess I’ll garden with an awesome 16-year-old on a May afternoon. If I absolutely have to.
Firstborn, who likes martial arts and homemade kombucha, started fretting in March about growing a garden.
But we did not buy a little indoor greenhouse. Instead we raced to soccer practice, to school, to the store, and thought about the insanity brewing in the world all around us.
It was a chaotic phase.
On Saturday, Firstborn put his foot down. You know, as well as a guy who doesn’t yet have a car or a job can put his foot down.
“It’s mid-May. The late frost is behind us. And I don’t know any store that stocks enough vegetables to keep me fed,” said the giant with the teenaged brain.
Little did he know, I needed a break from every non-gardening thing in the world anyway. We drove to the store and bought sprouts.
Cucumbers, tomatoes, melons, herbs; grape and blueberry vines. The stuff of Firstborn’s dreams, right after epic swordfights.
“Look, Mom,” said he as we pulled into the driveway with a backseat full of plants. “I know you’re probably busy, but you’ll have to help me plant the vines because I’ve never done it before.”
I have never been less busy than at that moment.
Firstborn and I looked at the remains of our old “garden.” We haven’t grown anything in three years. The weeds dwarfed the chicken wire.
“Don’t worry,” said he. “I got it.”
Looking like an Achilles with access to protein powder and wielding a rake like a war club, the titanic man-child cleared the weeds in 20 minutes flat.
A rogue hilarity shook my brain. The cooing mush package that came from my belly 16 years ago can now clear a garden in less time than it takes me to finish a cheesecake.
“What’s so funny?” he asked.
“You used to be mush,” I said, still giggling.
“Huh?”
“Ahem,” I gathered myself. “Nothing.”
In my head flashed an image of Firstborn, age 2, toddling through our old garden at the little house in town, with tomato seeds smashed on his overalls pockets and on his ripe, satin cheeks. The way he’d kneel on the ground with his feet stacked one on the other and smooshed under his body, while he checked the strawberry vines for anything red. The way he’d nod in approval when he crunched open a bell pepper.
“Well, Mom,” said a colossal voice beside me. “Do you need help lifting that water bucket?”
I laughed again.
“Yeah, if you don’t mind,” I said.
Firstborn and I dug and cut elm roots, planted sprouts, and washed our hands in the water bucket that I could probably, but didn’t care to lift.
He chattered about his life and thoughts. They’re all his own. They’re like a sprawling universe in a novel I was only allowed to edit, not write.
He referred to a habanero pepper sprout as a “he” and talked about “his” prospects in this soil.
Firstborn doesn’t realize he’s doing hard work, I thought. He doesn’t realize he’s being vulnerable either.
In a garden, anything is possible. You can exhale fully. You can pray for your enemies. You can make a serious 16-year-old laugh.
“Hey Mom,” began Firstborn. “I think we need some leafy greens over there.”
He gestured to the gnarled elm’s corner of tyranny, er, shade.
“Can we go back to the store and buy some?” he asked.
My capillaries flushed. My ears rang. I hadn’t felt that light and happy since the last time a dentist gave me laughing gas.
But I didn’t dare tell Firstborn that the whole enterprise was about anything other than getting good paleo food into his system so that he could, like, totally out-lift all the other gym bros.
I cleared my throat and said, “I mean, if you insist.”
Clair McFarland can be reached at: Clair@CowboyStateDaily.com
Clair McFarland can be reached at clair@cowboystatedaily.com.
