April 2, 2010

Good Friday.

My most cherished possession–not even sure it counts as a possession– is the clump of bloodroot blooming on the back terrace. I didn’t plant them in a circle, but they have arranged themselves in a circle. Cheery, pristine white, a clump of snow in a green cradle.

I have given myself the most strange and yet most meaningful Good Friday. The day is so warm and perfect that after coffee with Tom I decided to work in the yard. I dropped a wad at Reems Creek nursery, then came home and wrapped my hand around the shovel handle. My left hand had been in agony either from weights or from earlier gardening– a sheet of pain around the muscles and joints when I so much as lifted a cup or tried to make a fist–and I thought I would get nothing done, but there were only two moments of sharp pain, and the rest was fine. I dug out the clogged roof drain on DJ’s garage. I hauled sacks of dirt, filled in more of the trench on the terrace, and planted it with a variety of ground covers alleged to grow fast and cover the bare ground against erosion, and to bloom gaudily. Dug out weeds and the interlacing vine roots that are all the substorey of the terrace. Planted succulents and lobelia, and two kinds of mint (I think spearmint has the best chance of gobbling up the waste ground). I delved and weeded, dug new beds, freed old ones from their invasions of weeds. I was supposed to sing chants at church at noon today, but I elected not to. The reason I will give everybody is that there are too many basses and I did the balance a favor. But a truer reason is that all the time in the sun, bending my back into the dirt, I was meditating. I can’t say that I was meditating on the Passion of Christ, but I think was. Even in the blinding sun I felt solemn and set apart–churched. I don’t know exactly what my thoughts were, and I take that often as the sign of true meditation. It was very solemn and very happy at once. When I sat down after to have a leisurely drink and read on my front porch, I could hear Kelli and Quincey next door, having the little conversations mother and child have. It was all blessed. Drank, and then slept, and now I am awake on a warm, clear, solemn evening.