I'm GoingOut to Weed! - Coping with Black Tuesday, Chapter 1
"I'm going out to pull some weeds, damit!", I tell Pepsi, our black lab, as I shove open the kitchen door. Ann, my wife, is at work or I would have said it to her. The kids too, are at school. I am off today since I had worked the weekend. I am supposed to get a lot of work done around the house and yard with no one to interrupt me. "Want to come along?" Peps looks ruefully at me and dutifully trots out the door. She knows my moods, but is always loyal.
I have just spent the last 2 1/2 hours glued to the TV set. It is Tuesday September 11, 2001. Since 10 AM I have been mesmerized by the tale that is unfolding. I have actually seen 2, yes two 110 story buildings collapse within 15 minutes of each other. Then, again and again! I have seen a jetliner, repeatedly fly directly into one of the towers. I have seen the Pentagon, a mere 100 miles away by air, largely still standing but with a huge gaping hole in one of its 5 sides. I am miffed. I am hurt. I am confused. I want to get even. I want to know WHO is responsible? I want to know why so many people should die? My heart is heavy. I really don't feel like doing anything, but I have to do something. I have to release energy. I have to put my hands to work and churn my mind.
That's the way it is with me. Whenever I need to think, to brood, to make sense of things around me, I head towards the garden or the lawn mower. Those seeming aimless chores spend energy, while allowing adequate capacity for the mind to wander, to churn. They allow enough spare RAM to multi task the brain and not let it churn too fast.
So I head down the hill toward the "pumpkin patch". But it isn't actually a pumpkin patch this year. Never quite got a round to planting them this year. I can feel a deep, deep anger in my chest. I feel violated. Unsafe. I am mad as hell at someone. Why do some people, some ideologies seemingly have such a lack of basic human respect for human life? No answers!
As I arrive at the "patch" I note the strawberries I'd planted the week before in a bed covered by black plastic. I'd dutifully spaded a 3-foot wide bed, incorporating well-composted manure, Plant Tone and Bone Meal as I went. I'd carefully laid an oozing soaker hose and then cover the bed with the plastic, pulling it taut and anchoring the edges with soil. Then I'd cut little holes and planted the 50 two inch "plugs" I'd ordered in a dual row, allowing a foot between plants and 18 inches between the rows. Two rows- 25 feet of bed. Not really all that much, but it'd taken the better part of a day to do it right.
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