Dirty Dancing

Lawn can be converted to a garden by covering with layers of newspaper and topping with four inches of compost. In six to nine months, you can plant in your new bed. I didn’t want to pay for compost or wait months. To create one bed immediately and one for future planting, I removed sod from one area and placed it over fourteen layers of newspaper in an adjoining area.

I didn’t take into account how slow sod breaks down. If I expected to have a second plantable bed, I had to separate the grass from the soil and rocks. I’d hold a clump of sod, shake firmly, pull to smaller pieces, shake again, and gently pull visible earthworms from the roots to put onto the bed, which left rich dirt filled with earthworms on decomposing newspaper. Voila!

Voila indeed. This took hours of dirty work. If I was going to persevere, I had to make this more pleasant. I began to do a dance with the earth. To garden is to interact with the soil and the life it sustains. To dance is to interact with the space and life around you. My shaking and pulling, kneeling and standing, throwing and placing, became a dance with this earth.

Kneel, reach, lift, shake, one, two, three, four. Puuuullll, shake, one, two, three, four. Separate carefully and toss, gently.

And repeat.

Reach, lift, shake, one, two, three, four. Puuuullll, shake, one, two, three, four. Separate carefully and toss, gently. Again. Again. Again…

Well, it is good exercise.

To others, I wasn’t dancing. I was, at best eccentric, at worst a lunatic. The image of a dance with the earth was a comfort. I went to sleep with visions of earthworms dancing in the bed.