On Mother's Day

Weeding, digging, mixing clay soil with peat moss and sand, preparing the ground for growth — for many years I have planted annuals on Mother's Day. It is a chore that takes me, if only for an hour or two, into another world. The part I like the most, of course, is the end point of all the preparation — spading the newly friable soil and tucking the begonia or impatiens plants into it.

The timing of this task does not escape me. Every time I do it, yesterday for instance, I think of the metaphorical aspect of this Mother's Day chore, of planting the tender-rooted flowers, of launching them into what I hope is a season of profusion. The teenage years have changed the way I think about this metaphor. I worry more about the hazards, the hard-packed clay, the weeds that choke, the rain that doesn’t fall, the deer who breakfast on my garden.

And yet, I still plant.