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Got To Get Back To The Land Said My Soul
Gardening has been the focus of my existence the past couple of weeks. Well, more precisely, gardening and studying income tax procedure have distracted me from the increasingly discouraging Search For Gainful Employment. Job hunting is a frustrating, fruitless, ennui instilling task that lately has sucked my soul nearly as dry as actually having a job that I don't like. I guess you could say that for the moment at least, looking for a job is my job, and it's not a fun one, let me tell you.
Gardening, on the other hand is soul-filling. The physical act of rooting around in the dirt, playing Supreme Being over the lives of various and sundry varieties of inanimate vegetable matter, deciding which tufts of green will live and thrive, and which shall be tossed into the Great Plastic Wagon of Eternal Damnation gives one a sense of satisfaction that, at least some sort of order is being restored to the universe, even if it is merely in the form of conquering the chaos of neglected flower beds. Nature is being tamed and controlled, albeit on a nearly infinitesimally small scale. But, at this point in my life, any feeling of control, even over a few lowly blades of grass or patches of moss is empowering.
Plus, it gets me outside, out of the confines of my tiny apartment, away from the beckoning, siren-like glow of the computer monitor, where I would otherwise spend endless hours searching, searching the highways and byways of the electronic job posting networks, squinting with nearsighted intensity at the myriad of underpaying positions that I simply am not going to demean myself into applying for at this time, no thank you bub. I've engaged the services of a couple of temp agencies, and although they have sent me out on a mere handful of interviews to-date, I can tell that prospects aren't going to be any better along this train either. They tell me, "things are rough out there", "the economy just hasn't rebounded the way most people think", "you're going to have to lower your expectations", etc., etc., all of which just adds to the increasing anxiety I feel as I lay awake into the early morning hours ticking off the bills that need to be paid, and feeling each downward click of my savings account balance stabbing through me like a deep puncture wound made by small, sharp needles. I'm getting edgy, like a junkie way past his next fix, and feel like I need to make some modest score soon, at least a few weeks of whatever to fill the growing void, to keep myself sane and steady, or else the bats and snakes and spiders are going to start crawling out of the bleeding walls, and then all Hell is going to break loose.
But, outside the sky is a brilliant nitrous blue, the grass an enticing, chlorophyl green, and the soil, teeming with bits of wriggling, crawling life, is the satisfying shade of chocolate brownies fresh from the oven. It feels cool to the touch, comforting beneath my fingernails as it crumbles through my hand and falls back to earth. The hours slip by, and for a while I can forget that this isn't what I'm supposed to do with the rest of my life.
Posted byCOMTE
on 10:04 PM
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