Digging in Louisiana

We got back home Friday evening at sunset. We’d been living in Chicago for five months, having left southern Louisiana in May to escape its hellish summer heat. It was a good summer in Chicago, but now we are home.

In three or four days back, my body has changed. My hands and legs have cuts. I have blisters from fire ant bites. I have scratches from blackberry thorns, which are knife-sharp and tenacious and draw blood. I have other marks I can’t account for.

I have cleared our three garden beds, which were overrun and sprawling with plants, dreadlocked and matted, some of which I didn’t recognize. They had settled in like squatters. They didn’t want to be evicted. But I wanted my garden beds back, and I ripped them out. Gardening was one thing I missed sorely in Chicago. It gives me so much satisfaction

The three beds, reclaimed.

In the process of weeding, I knelt next to the confines of the beds. I forgot about fire ants. You don’t see them on your strolls through Chicago. But they are here in Louisiana. I didn’t feel their bite at first. It was only after a few got hold of my skin that something told me I needed to stand up and do something. Their bite is painful, a fierce, insect-y fire. I had to experience this more than once before I became more vigilant. And wear gloves and long pants. The sores remain. Badges.

What I do when I garden is bend, dig and pull. Basic, simple words for basic, simple tasks. I thrust my hands into the clean dirt. I sense the dark soil against my skin. I smell its earthy perfume. I am happy.

I missed manual labor in Chicago. A big city doesn’t provide as many opportunities for this as the country does. There are simple but sometimes strenuous tasks to perform here on our land in Louisiana, and I like doing them. My wife thanks me for doing them, and there is pleasure in your wife appreciating your work well done. If you can’t impress your wife, who can you impress?

One of the reclaimed beds, planted with winter vegetables.

As a writer, I’m never sure if my work is any good. I try my best, and if I like what I’ve written and like reading it myself, that’s all I can do. There is no objectivity in writing. But a cleared garden bed is a cleared bed. This is an objective truth. No one can refute that. I find great comfort in that.

One of my greatest friends died last week, Bob Finch, a heralded nature writer and a lovely man. I think of him from time time as I work. He enjoyed manual labor as well and knew the worth of it. At one time in his life he was a carpenter. He liked to chop and split wood, and when I visited him, I watched him have at it. I feel a kindship with his spirit as I work. It will take a long time to get used to the fact that he is no longer here.

I think of Seamus Heaney’s lovely poem, “Digging.” The poet, as a boy, watches his father and grandfather dig the earth for potatoes. He knows that he, as a grown man, will never match their skill. So instead of a spade, he will take a pen in his hand. “I’ll dig with it,” his poem concludes.

Writing is manual labor. Especially if you use a pen or pencil. You strain, you sweat, you grimace, you take deep breaths and go at it. A lot of times what you produce is a mess. All you’ve dug is a big hole.

My shovel.

Often I’d rather have a shovel in my hands, dig dirt, turn it and extract weeds. It’s all so clear and so satisfying, and worth enduring the in-the-blood venom of a few fire ants. Besides, I like having the marks of that struggle on my body. Ink on the side of my writing hand just doesn’t get the same respect.

But a writer I am, and so I take my pen in my hand. And begin.

Watch over me, Bob, as I dig.