It took me two hours, but oh yes I did it. By Jasmin Bradshaw
Reluctantly I walked into the laundry and picked up the half-leather, half-cotton gardening gloves that my lovely neighbour Pam had brought over the other day. Along with this strange looking gardening tool that had a fork looking thing at the end of it. I hear it’s great to dig into the bottom of a weed and rip it out with full force.
I was debating with myself as to whether or not I should ditch the gardening and get stuck into my essay that’s due in less than two days. But the sun was shining the birds were singing, the breeze was breezing, and I decided that a little bit of time spent in the garden may actually make me study even better.
Looking down at my thongs I thought I should probably be wearing sneakers just in case a big hairy spider decides to jump out at me. But I couldn’t be bothered, so thongs it was.
The square patch of grass surrounded by plants is situated in the midst of pebbles. Sitting on the pebbles inevitably hurt my butt. I found sitting in the dirt not just a better option, but one that in someway made me a more relaxed and content person. I even found my self staring at the sky every now then thinking ‘I wonder what’s up there?’.
Who would of known that the smell of dirt could be missed so much. Sliding my thongs off and rubbing my feet in the soft warm dirt, the aroma of soil filled the air. And oh my god it was so good.
It reminded me of countless hours spent in the back yard as a child. Oh the good ol days of collecting slater bugs and hunting for snails. My older brother and I would collect the slater bugs and bring them into the bath with us. The feel of their thousand little tiny legs going over the skin felt like just that. And if you’ve never had the wonderful experience of letting a slater bug crawl on your skin, well then you’re missing out and I suggest you go into your back quick smart (as in now) and get yourself a new buggy friend. We always used to get so upset when they would die. You knew they were dead when they curled up into a little ball. Thinking back however, we used to flick those little balls of curled up slater bug at one another.
We would put the snails on the timber fence. It was a competition you see on how many snails we could put on our side of the fence. We would count them afterwards, and I’m pretty sure I would win most of the time.
So here’s me, sitting in the dirt getting tremendous satisfaction from ripping out weeds reflecting on my sweet childhood memories. Attempting to gently grab a slater bug and put it on my hand. But for some reason the bugs didn’t seem to like my big grown up 26 year old hands.