Life

The gardens are flourishing and immensely satisfying. My father came back up with mom this weekend. Mom told me how beautiful everything is, how proud she is and about how hard I have to work. You never grow out of wanting your parents approval. So this pleased me of course, to no end. Her and pop both; seeing the looks on their faces of , I don't know, pleasure? relief? just pleased me to no end.. And all I can really think about regarding the work part is that no matter what I could be doing, I would be working hard. Any other job I would be striving to do my best. There would be stresses and I would come home tired. This job? The gardens? Yes, I work very very hard. And yes, I get stressed. And yes, at the end of each day, I'm beat.

And when I wake up in the morning to such beauty, the flowers and green leaves, fruit on the vine, harvesting tomatoes and beans, looking for ripe seed to collect and searching for enemy bugs to mush, I feel ....hmmm.....

Joy. I feel joy.

I didn't feel joy cleaning people's houses, or flipping pizzas in the corner store. I only felt tired.

This job I get to touch the earth every day with my own hands. I get to smell the dirt. I get to smell my own sweat when G-d blesses me with a beautiful breeze on really hot days. I get to catch a Monarch on my Echinacea blooms and watch this beautiful creature dart it's little tongue-like thing into the flowers I planted, I get to catch the hummingbird zooming in place, I get to hang out amongst the bees, unafraid because my fears have been assuaged by the experience itself; the bees want the flowers..not me. I get to learn how each plant reproduces itself, how each seed system is unique and perfect. I get to marvel all the time.

G-d insists.

And life is awesome.

And I am truly blessed to be allowed such intimate contact with creation.

Hard work? Yes.
Rewarding?
Absolutely!
It is perfectly OK that I am tired and I work hard.

I love you, mom & dad.