I wish all of it was this easy…
I call it macro-shoveling, and I hate it. But it’s necessary in order to obtain beauty.
It’s the part of the job where I go into the weed-infested area that was the flower garden last year (where’d all the weeds come from??), and turn the earth over with a full-sized hand shovel. Step on shovel with one foot, anchor the shovel in the dirt, then jump on it with both feet, jump off, and heave the chunk of soil over. And do it over. And over. And again. I’m out of shape and it’s exhausting and my back hurts.
Oh, no…is Horsebackwriter going into some kind of stupid metaphor about how working hard to prepare garden soil is like managing bipolar disorder?
Meh.
So my husband is going to go over that with the little hand-push tiller, and then it will be time for the good part. The micro-shoveling, where I go in there with a little spade and dig little holes. And we plant flowers! Whoopee!
This is partly why no writing lately. Schedule is mad. School kids are in finals, horses and track, and stress. And preparing the big vegetable garden (with the tractor, hubby’s way)… That and of course bipolar disorder, and depression. Yes I’m writing about bipolar, but it seems like I only write about it when things suck. Kind of like how I used to pray to God. When things suck. Now, through grace, I manage to give gratitude and praise even when things don’t suck.
So when things most recently sucked, I did not write about it, on purpose. Things don’t suck now, so I think I must be slightly manic. Especially since the adventure this afternoon. While driving the car to the bus stop, I smelled something burning. This in itself is not unusual, because of the oil leak dripping onto the engine somewhere, I think hubby said some kind of “manifold,” which causes enough smoke to slither from beneath the hood to make me believe the engine is on fire.
This smell was more rubbery. Mind you, the ignition was so hot from the sun I felt like I was burning my fingers when I started the car. But when I got to the bus stop to wait for the kids, after turning the car off, I noticed smoke coming off the steering column. Funny, I thought it was hot but not that hot. I turned the ignition to “on” so I could listen to my Supertramp tape, and oh, goodness, there was the smoke and stench again. I turned it off. The smoke disappeared. Thinking it was just too hot I turned the ignition to “on” again, and opened the windows. When I looked back down the steering column was smoking again. I turned the ignition off. As I did these things the smoke got to billowing, but only when the ignition was on.
The steering column will explode if I try to drive the kids home!! I thought.
Kids, I said, we have to walk home. No, don’t leave your books in the car, it may burst into flames. How was the track meet? Did you have to give your English presentation today?
Two miles later, I hadn’t yet noticed that I had not experienced a negative emotion one time during this frightening inconvenience. No switches flipping, no panic, no anger, no nothing, except tired. All afternoon macro-digging, and now this. The kids were way ahead of me. I felt old. And I had such a bad toothache that I didn’t dare open my mouth to huff and puff because the driving wind might hurt me. But accepting of circumstances, I plodded along like a horse.
Hubby scoffed at my concern that he was going to get blown up if he went back for the car and tried to drive it home. I said a little prayer when hubby’s friend drove him over to get the car, and soon enough hubby was back safely.
THERE HAD BEEN NO SMOKE! NO NOTHING! Of course, not for him. Well.
BUT IT WAS THERE! And the burning rubber stench, too, I asserted. Asserted, not yelled. Well I am happy for him but a bit appalled that since I will no longer drive that car ever again (I’ve made that promise before), I worry that he will blithely drive it clear into town and not notice when the steering column is once again about to go up in flames.
I wish they made a fertilizer for tilling the soil that also contained a substance lethal to all species of ants but completely nontoxic to humans and animals. Wouldn’t that be great?
Siege of the Spirit 