A Post-Birthday Reflection: Why I can Never Think about Gardening Again.

The older I get, the more it seems true: Some hobbies I used to imagine doing once I had the time for them now begin to look suspiciously like resignation.

Once, I thought I might like to garden, later on in life, when I had the time. In a time of rush and stress, pulling weeds and running a sprinkler seemed almost sane. We always think that way in the present moment. Some other, very different moment will be better than this one. Long ago, in a moment now far, far away, one I can no longer recreate or even understand, gardening seemed an image of relaxation.

Now, I don’t see it this way. Now, just a few years from turning 64, gardening has started to look too much like I’ve given up.

There are pictures we hold, perhaps collectively, perhaps individually, of life’s seasons. These un-verbalized images guide us in terms of what we envision to be appropriate for us for each stage—childhood, young adulthood, middle age, and old age. Each season, as I see them, has a tree caught in a certain season—childhood shows the tree budding, for example—while the figures in the picture are those we don’t quite recognize as individuals, though they appear vaguely like relatives or neighbors. Old age shows the barren tree in winter, with golden light and blankets. 

The path to that picture, in my mind, starts with those late middle age, early retirement hobbies.

There at the start, the path begins with gardening.

Better Advertising Campaigns

This is not to say that I won’t relax or do relaxing things.

It’s the representation that I object to now. It is the image of fussing around on a plot of land and having no connection with the larger world that I find not just unappealing, but unsettling.

Representation is the issue here, the, if you will, the advertising. It may be behind why others refuse to take up other occupations. For me, gardening advertises old age and retirement as mere piddle-paddle.

That’s the way we see the elderly, I suppose. We see them like we see salad. After a great steak dinner, I might think about balance and having a salad later in the week. 

But that is really going to all depend on how that salad is presented. And tofu is out.

Talk of salads returns us to gardening, about which I am not completely in the dark. Once, when I was in the fourth or fifth grade, I started a garden in our back yard. I grew tomatoes and some corn. I wanted to see what it had felt like for my father to work on a farm.

But that was a long time ago. I was experimenting with being in the world.

Four Seasons

I think that all of us want to stay in contact with the larger world. The one thing I can promise on that score, however, is this: I promise I will not run for president. We have now had our latest senior moments with an elderly president. There is no reason to do that again. 

At any rate, the representation on that one is not going to work very well by the time I get there. I will say no more about this, other than to note that there are increasing numbers of voters who, if they don't already, will probably start to wish that gardening had been represented better to our current resident of the White House.