Gardening
by Conn Daniel
I enjoy the smells of summer, especially out in the garden, where the tomatoes and the cantaloupe struggle with the weeds to survive. I like the stench of a sweat that comes from hard work outside. The harsh hug of the August heat doesn’t bother me too much. A garden is a sanctuary for me, but it’s also a lesson.
My family has lived in Benton County, Mississippi, for at least a century. We’ve always gardened. When spring returns with all its vitality, my grandfather calls for me. He asks me to help my grandmother with the garden, especially the tilling. I don’t have the option to tell him no, so I say, “Yes, sir,” and head for the tiller shed. I walk past the blackberry patch to the dark, rusty tin shed. The door’s rotten wood frame is snapped, so the tin hangs down like peeling wall paper. I stop and cautiously peer in, checking for wasp nests. Assured of not getting stung, I drag the tiller out backwards. I crank the machine and lead it down to the garden. The brown ground, still rough and uneven from last year’s garden, is broken up with ease by the tiller. The strenuous part consists of learning how to control the vivacious tiller; it can’t be forced to move or turn. I have to let it have a little leeway, and just put enough pull on the handles to keep it in a straight line. After I’ve finished two or three rows, my hands hurt because of the tiller’s vibrating madness. Even though the spring temperature is low, sweat streams down my forehead and into my eyes, stinging them and causing me to pause to wipe my face on the sleeve of my t-shirt. After the tilling is finished, and the first week of May has passed, the tomatoes need planting. This job is harder than tilling, for it involves driving the posts that support the tomato plants. The post-driver I use to do this is probably three times my age; my great-grandfather made it. I pick up a green, metal post, and head to the rows of tomatoes my grandmother has already planted. With one arm I pull the pole upright, and with the other I slip the crude and rusty iron driver over the top. I check to make sure the post will sink straight into the light brown dirt and I begin ramming down the driver till the post is deep enough to stand alone. Metal sliding against metal, like a raspy rhythm and blues singer, accompanies the sharp notes the post-drive lets out when it bangs against the top of the post.
At school, I sit at my desk: elbows spread wide, my nose following the path of my pen along a piece of paper. Homework almost never stops—I could always be studying or reading for one of my classes. An ACT study guide sits thickly atop an encyclopedia of organic gardening. I count the assignments left in my planner using French, so I can practice the language. My life in Columbus, at the Mississippi School for Mathematics and Science, is very different from my life in Benton County. Here, I don’t use a hoe to weed, but a keyboard to write an essay. It isn’t muscle that keeps me going at MSMS, but the will to learn and to excel. The manual labor involved with gardening has given me a motivation to succeed in academics. I realize that physical labor will gnarl my spine, and I don’t want that. I would rather exhaust my mental facilities. I know how hard physical work is—through my own experience gardening, and through observing my father and grandfather. Pawpaw Earl, my grandfather, was much of a man. At six foot and seven inches and four hundred pounds, nobody scared him. He could take a concrete cinderblock in each hand and throw them without strain. Pawpaw has arthritis of the spine now, and mostly sits in his chair, reading the papers. Daddy is over six feet and four hundred pounds. His work is hard and straining. Daddy gets cuts and bruises and burns, but keeps working like he’s not tired and worn out. My family has a lot of hope for me. Through education I can go beyond physical labor and get what my family calls “a job in the air conditioner”—in other words, an intellectually challenging and satisfying job that doesn’t demand brawn.
Even though there’s work involved, a garden is beautiful. The focus and participation I put into gardening rewards me liberally with its lovely features, fruits, and vegetables. The same is true with academic work; it’s rewarding. Literature and philosophy lit my way while I discovered how to relate myself to the world in writing. Calculus and physics showed me how to approach the world in a mathematical and scientific way. Gardening has taught me to approach my studies with discipline and determination. I will strive towards excellence with the wisdom that hard work has revealed to me.