Why I love digging

I’ve been feeling sad lately. (More on that in another post but you can reference Four Lies for now.) This week, though, I realized there’s something healing about digging in the dirt. 

Last weekend I bought a pair of apple tree saplings with the intent to plant them in the backyard. The same day I got sick, and now at the end of the week I am finally well enough to go out and dig. It’s a good thing, because we’re leaving tomorrow for a long trip. This is my last chance to get those trees in the ground. 

Today wasn’t the best day for yard work; the weather was misty and threatening rain. It also rained all night, so the ground was soft, but also very heavy.The shovel kept getting so much mud clotted onto it that I was lifting 20 pounds of shovel and only moving a handful of dirt each time. I had to keep scraping it off, but it would gunk up again in one or two digs. 

My back was getting tired, so I stopped for a minute to rest. A breeze sent water pattering down from the wet leaves of nearby trees and I found myself thinking about this neighborhood. There’s a reason I’m planting these trees. Erik and I both have backgrounds in overseas work, and we can both easily imagine ending up out on the field again someday. But that desire carries with it a temptation to romanticize life “over there” and forget to put down roots where we are now. 

These trees are a response from me to God. I’m saying that I will do my best to bloom where I’m planted right now. He has given me this particular patch of land, so I will dig in it. I’m not sure how long I will be here, but I will invest here. I have always wanted fruit trees, so I will plant them, even if 5 years down the line it’s someone else who gets to enjoy their fruit. I am willing to do a little work so someone else can eat an apple. Lord knows how many times I have enjoyed the fruits of other people’s labor! 

I kept digging and thought about the rhythmic motion of cutting up sod. It reminds me of another time when I did this and felt my soul healing with every crunch of the shovel. When I first moved from Eurasia to Texas after getting married, I missed life across the ocean. I wasn’t sure how much I wanted to bond with Texas or how long we would stay here. I also felt really incompetent to do daily tasks: I was out of practice at driving, navigating overabundant American grocery stores, and cooking. I felt discouraged about building my new domestic life in our quiet cul-de-sac full of retirees. 

Then one day I decided to plant a little garden in our backyard. I found a shovel in the garage and slowly started removing chunks of sod from a strip of land. As I dug, I felt comforted. I remembered my Eurasian potato farmer family who would do the very same thing in their backyard every spring. Just one year prior, I had worked up some good blisters in my host mom’s yard, helping her turn over soil with a shovel so she could plant flowers and herbs. Now doing the same movements in Texas, I realized this was one skill I had learned overseas that I could apply here. Or, I guess, anywhere. Most of the world has dirt. 

There’s something so primal about cultivating land. I guess that’s how it should be. After all, didn’t God create people to tend his garden and make babies (Genesis 2:15 and 1:28)? 

This morning just as I wrestled the second tree into place and covered it with soil, a heavy rain started to fall. It soaked my hair as I hosed down my shovel and headed inside. Now, warm and dry with my coffee, I look out the back window at the trees shimmering with water. Sink your roots deep, little trees. 

As for me, I will dig in the dirt wherever I go. I will plant fruit trees in neighborhoods where I may or may not stay long term. I will cultivate the land and choose to believe that my tilling, planting or watering is only a small part of the big story that the Master Gardener will continue whether or not I am present to see it.