There I was, digging a hole in hard clay soil in the hot sun in a backyard somewhere in Redlands. The shovel was hardly making a dent so I picked up my mattock and started swinging. Sweat stinging my eyes, I stopped to take a deep breath and while breathing, hard, I thought to myself "...what am I doing? Is this what I went back to school for? To do the work of a laborer? Am I throwing everything I learned away? How is it that I'm back in this place, toiling in the hot sun with dirt under my nails, grubby jeans, cut up arms and calloused hands? Shouldn't I be in an air-conditioned office employing my brainpower or close to retirement from a successful career? What about earning enough to actually save a little? What am I doing here?!!! Everything in my head was silent for a moment. Then it came... the reason I'm back doing physical labor, this kind of work. It's because I can. It's because it's good for me. It's because I L-O-V-E the feel of dirt; the loosening of it and the planting into it. To see something growing and producing and regenerating over and over and over again. It's basic. It's fundamental to survival. It's beautiful and it's satisfying.
I don't need to explain this to anyone. It's just what makes me happy and content. It's a useful ambition in which one can save on trips to the grocery store. I eat what I grow and when it's not in season I don't eat it. I look forward to the time when I'll be able to have plenty kind of like when the peaches used to ripen in the orchard when my mom was a girl. She told me that Grandma would put up 100 quarts of peaches every summer. Standing over a kettle in the heat of July... but oh those peaches would be wonderful to open mid-January.
So, for now, I'll keep digging.
