9.11

I love you the same way I garden:
I bought beans and tomatoes and peppers and basil. I was thrilled when the tomatoes started bearing. I watched the beans with fascination. I clipped a leaf from the basil just to smell it. Of course, gardening is a lot of work; I weed and water and feed the plants every day I can, and when I notice I'm falling behind, I schedule myself a few hours just to maintain the garden.
Then you blew in.
We planted little puffy purple flowers and great big yellow ones. We scattered white blooms along the beanrow and deep purple among the tomatoes. Overnight, I went from ten plants to fifty. I couldn't walk down the rows without my big feet smashing the new plants. I couldn't ignore the watering for a few days or the flowers would start to suffer. Oh! and the weeds were able to hide so much more easily now. I couldn't fix what I couldn't find.

The day we picked our flowers and made bouquets, I understood the headaches and the hard work. All I needed was the smell and the sight of flocks of blooms exploding from the vases to understand--The effort was for this.