I’ve been meaning to get into planting. For years now I’ve imagined myself planting seeds and tending to things. An absence of a garden and then a garden with limited sunlight have been my excuse for a while. But the backdoor and the tiny patio are sheltered and get the sun all day. I could find terracotta pots and let compost collect under my nails. I have the time, god knows I have the time. It’s just been getting started.
Three months ago Pip gave me one of those boxes that has a kit to plant things. It’s from Waitrose and this one is for edible flowers. It’s been in our kitchen on the side since she gave it to me and I didn’t imagine myself unboxing it or following the three-step guide. But I’m doing it, I am at last doing it. The first (of three) steps is to put the compost pellet into a container and then cover it with warm water. Within about 10 seconds it had tripled in size and now I literally have a tall pile of compost. I wished I’d filmed it growing, it had the satisfaction feeling similar to when someones bare flesh sits on garden furniture and a kind of disgusting display of flesh squeezing through metal gaps in a pattern of identical sizes occurs.
Anyway I was talking to my sisters the other day about how slapdash we all are. Our dad walks through the woods slowly enough to notice things, trees mostly, and more specifically the way the light hits a branch or the shape of a leaf. He really notices it. Sometimes when I’m panting and stomping my way down the new river path near me listening to The Rat by The Walkman I think, this is probably not the correct order of things. Because it’s such a brief flash of nature it feels delicate, the path is narrow and if I wasn’t listening to you’ve got a nerve to be asking a favour, I’d hear birdsong.
This morning I unloaded the tumble dryer at the same time as I made my smoothie. I got neither task done more quickly, there was just this chaotic blend of pairing socks and then peeling a banana. Tom and I eat our meals so fast we recently alienated Tabby who was just trying to chew her breakfast but became stressed in our presence and the race to finish for absolutely no reason. I like to think things go in columns and people do too. Gardening is for gentle people with patience. Baking for meticulous people, also with patience. Folding clothes and towels is for Tom. Nice nails were never for me until it suddenly was and I seemed to have the nicest nails of all.
My slapdash nature comes with an efficiency bage of honour. I get things done alarmingly quickly. I always wonder what everyone else is doing. This includes how quickly I pee, my time in the shower (even with a hair wash), how long I need to be ready and out the door, making and clearing up for meals, writing, getting dressed after swimming, writing meaningful messages in cards and so forth. People comment, all the time. I sometimes think it’s why my days can feel quite long. The way the hours stretch for me and there’s still all this time in the afternoon.
I will never truly understand why we do some things and not others. It is never about not having time. Perhaps we all require a certain number of hours for frittering and some of us can use a whole day like a work day and some of us have peak moments and troughs moments and that’s just the way it is. Sorry I’m a Projector I could never work 9-5 again. But then I could write a book. Well and quickly and with relative ease. Then months of thicker air and slow swimming up stream would still me until it was time for something else.
When I get caught up in the race of life I worry that I’m not at the right point. Not enough of the correct ducks in a row. Less income than I’ve had at any point in my adult life and 6 kiwis cost £8. That’s not a joke. We put them back. I’ve been storing up energy all winter and I’m ready to go and I’m waiting for the gun (metaphor).
What I have learnt is that no matter how quick I am at getting through tasks, everything, and I mean everything takes longer than I want it to/imagine it will/can cope with. If I was permitted (and I am because it’s my Substack and sometimes being funny and naughty and sometimes being thoughtful and serious is my god given right) to continue with metaphors then I’d bring up a hamster wheel, or a water wheel, or one of those chain of event things that causes one thing to bleed into another here. A Rube Goldberg Machine ok! And it’s a bit like in the scheme of life and specifically my life I have a small part to play: get my words written, make a Hinge profile or plant the edible flower seed. And I’d scrolled through a million men before it was Tom. You know? The meeting him part was, I believe in the end, nothing to do with me. And I don’t know yet what will come of the words or whether the flower will grow. I know most likely it won’t happen when I think I want it to happen. But the point is with hope in my heart I planted the seed.
<3 I love this...seeds are always such a good reminder of all the good things xx
Older woman wisdom- You should not rush peeing-rest on the loo for another 10-15 seconds, make sure all is out, you’ll thank me when you’re 50+ 😉