Mom’s Eden

Mom’s tomato plants —she gets mad when I eat the pretty white powder she sprinkles on the leaves. I like helping mom plant seeds. She puts them in my palms. I poke my tiny index finger in the soil to make homes for each seed. Sometimes I eat the seeds and get distracted by the dirt. Dirt is a magic home to immortal worms — they can’t die even when split with a spade.

I exercise the bugs; they run from hand to hand like a treadmill. I wonder how they have so many legs, but I can’t feel any of them as they crawl across my sunburned skin. I especially like the daddy long leg spiders that live in the tractor tire strawberry beds. Mom says their mouths are so tiny, they can’t bite me. They are my friends —unlike the red ants. I don’t touch them anymore, just spy on them as they roll great boulders of dirt uphill and escape my gaze into underground kingdoms I don’t dare excavate. I wish I was small enough to see their cities.

Underneath the apple tree, I sit in the dirt. I find more squirmy treasures in the fallen apples I eat. There’s slugs under the leaves. Slugs are my favorite species. I harvest them to show to mom. I work hard to earn the roly poly’s trust. Coward knight, he curls his armored body in a tight ball when placed in my hand. I hold him until he’s ready to play. Gardens require patience; I learn to count in roly polies, lady bugs, slugs, and worms.

Snakes sometimes greet me in the garden. They walk with their bellies. They don’t bother to tempt me— yet. I am too happy in Eden to be tempted. I eat mom’s raspberries when I’m hungry, I sing songs to the lady bugs. I am a great gardener.

When the clouds turn to cotton candy behind the chicken coop, I know I’m almost out of time. The sun tip-toes off to bed and my skin grows tiny bumps. It’s cold now. Mom takes my hand and leads me to the house for a bubble bath.

Over two decades later…

Mom’s Eden became overrun by woods. After college, I worked to restore the garden to its former glory. I uprooted trees and had the soil tilled. Mom and I planted seeds together again. I was seeking childhood nostalgia, but I discovered new wonder and innocence each time I tended that garden. As an adult, it is perfectly good to hunt slugs, exercise bugs, and make friends with the reluctant roly poly.

Mom’s garden has become a theme throughout my life – a call to return to simpleness, to nature. When my world outside the garden becomes too complex for my character, Eden is always waiting.

In western South Dakota, Mother’s Day typically marks the time gardeners can finally plant without fear of frost or snow. My mom and I took some time to plant some flowers and garden herbs. I hope someday I can give my children the Eden experience my mom gave to me.