What the I Heck Am I Doing???

Mommy, what is this lady doing??!!?

I screech to a sputtering halt not quite comprehending the question. In my mind, it is quite obvious what I am doing.  I slowly turn around to look at the voice. I can’t really see him for my glasses are caked with dirt. I take the glasses off to see better and while I am removing them I notice a large patch of uprooted turf hanging on the eye-shade of my baseball cap. I instinctively shake it off, and in the process scatter some dirt on the boy and his mom. The perplexed look on his face is a mixture of curiosity, fear and desire to join me in the dirt-digging fun. The fear seems to overtake the other two and he steps closer to his mama and hugs her right leg.

I am surrounded by holes where weeds used to be. Our lawn resembles an exploding minefield, a rabid squirrel habitat,… a….

The lady…, his mama speaks slowly, enunciating every word, The lady is… planting!

With that, she dusts the dirt off his shoulder as they move on.

I am left confused by her cryptic comment. With dirty glasses in my hand, I turn to the blurry tree in the middle of the garden.

Did you hear that? That blind woman can’t tell the difference between WEEDING and PLANTING??

The tree stares back at me without a word. I interpret its silence as agreement and turn my attention back to the lawn.

With all the holes and craters, it now looks more like the surface of the Moon. I’ve never seen anybody plant anything on the Moon, except, maybe Neil Armstrong when he planted the flag of the United States. I certainly am not a Neil Armstrong.

The wasteland sprawled in front of me speaks a language of its own. As I begin to decipher its message I sense the wind fizzling out of my sail.

What the heck am I doing????

I feel so hopeless and pathetic, I want to weep. I turn to the tree and hug its trunk.

I am doomed. I sniffle, the puddle of self-pity ever increasing around my feet. I don’t think you can understand me but I feel so…  so stuck!  I stand on the large vein of the surface root, quite oblivious to the irony.  

The tree sways gently in the breeze.