Two weeks into the coronavirus pandemic lockdown, I decided that I was going to use the “extra time” to learn how to juggle.  I see now that this was a lot like a former colleague telling me she planned to learn French during her maternity leave.

Because of all the extra time.

I didn’t know why, of all the things available to me to learn, I chose juggling.  I know now that it had something to do with the fact that it would be observed as pretty cool. 

So, I got started.  I told myself that I would practice a little bit every day.  A few minutes incrementally and I would become a professional.  I could see the slow-motion playback of my accomplishments.  I even took a video of my first attempt, imagining what it would look like next to the last when I had become a master.  I took a second video the next day.  Then I gave up juggling forever and didn’t think about it again.  Not once. Not ever.  Until right now.  I don’t even regret it.

Although my shortest-lived hobby on record, it was reminiscent of my stint at becoming a gardener.  A lifelong dream from childhood.  Certainly linked to my dad, who was an incredible gardener.  He took a span of grass across our tiny, Ohio backyard and turned it into a paradise.  He did the same out of thin air on Long Island.  I loved going outside and standing near the completed garden in the summer evenings when there was still enough light when he got home from work.  Picking bright red tomatoes off the vine and filling my arms with deep green cucumbers, I would take a bite of a tomato as I made my way to the house and the juice would drip quickly down my arm.  It felt like I did something.  But I did nothing.  And I never (never) went outside when he was planting in the spring.  I don’t even remember him digging up the rectangular shape in the yard.  I wasn’t even interested in watching that part.  And yet.  I told anyone who would listen, my whole adult life before becoming a homeowner, “when we have a house with a yard, I’m going to grow a garden.  I can’t wait.”

“Oh, I love to garden.”  I have a friend who took one look at the space we have in our backyard for a garden and immediately started walking around the grass, creating a dreamscape above her head that I almost fooled myself into believing.  A tiny fence popped up out of the ground around her to parcel off the space.  Neat, little rows of dirt, big enough for her to walk between the herbs, vegetables, and flowers.  Her mind and enthusiasm for gardening created an oasis that took up more than 50% of the space.  She was energized and hopeful.  For my next birthday, she bought me a book on gardening herbs.  I had never seen anyone grow herbs in anything more than a terra cotta pot.  I was energized by her vision but simultaneously wanted to ask her to move in and make sure it got done.  But wait.  I wanted to be a gardener.  Why did I want her to do it?  Probably because she had already grown a giant garden at her house.  Likely because she saw what I didn’t, and it was so beautiful.  I flipped through the book she gave me, filled with enviable pictures of sky-high flowering plants and lush, gorgeous colors, and then became so overwhelmed and exhausted about what I would have to do to make it happen that I closed the book and walked away.  I returned to it two more times with the same reaction, turned it into a coffee table book, and never opened it again.  Maybe I just had to start smaller.

Like my dad, I got a seed starting tray and attempted to grow something from seemingly nothing.  I grew nothing.  Not even a glimmer of nothing.  Vast, empty nothing.  Did I overwater, or underwater?  Was there enough light, or not enough?  Maybe it was too hot or chilly at night.  I called people smarter than me, and they all said the same thing.  Get some garden-ready plants and get yourself away from the starting line.

So, we bought three big planter tubs from a local nursery.  One for tomatoes, one for peppers, and one for beans.  We placed them in the sunniest area of our back patio and filled them with planting soil.  I let my daughters hollow out small areas where the plants would find their new home.  I relished the feeling that I was teaching them something about life and nature.  We overlapped our fingers, gently patting down the soil around the stems once they were in.  We took turns sprinkling water over the top of the leaves.  And then we watched.

Very little happened over the coming weeks.  The height of the plants increased slightly, but nothing else.  The green turned brown, and the dirt seemed to reject absorbing the water.  A slimy, wet bacteria liquid sat, lifeless above the dirt.  Six weeks in, I was sharing my woes with a friend, and she casually asked, without looking up, “ha. Did you forget to drill holes in the bottom or something?”

I never spoke to her again.

We discarded the soil, but not until October.  The failed tubs just sat on our patio like decoration.  If decoration is meant to make you feel like a failure.

The following spring, I threw my hat back in the ring.  My husband drilled holes in the empty tubs, and we filled the bottom with rocks before adding the potting soil.  We had learned two things, but it felt like 100.  This was going to work.  Tiny glimmers of peppers, beans, and tomatoes started sprouting up but did not grow.  Or worse, disappear.  I was stumped.  One day, glancing out of my kitchen window, I saw my one, precious cherry tomato plant with tiny green tomatoes.  And they were starting to turn red! 

I opened the screen door and raced outside, stopping suddenly and bending down to get as close to it as possible.  One, triumphant red tomato.  I didn’t even think of picking it off the vine.  I wanted it to be a beacon of light for others.  See what you can be if you try hard enough? 

The following day, I walked past the same kitchen window, hoping to see neighbor tomatoes with the same bright red skin.  Instead, I saw a chipmunk.  Upside down, using his entire body weight and all four limbs to get the one red tomato to drop to the ground.  His lunch, I presumed.  He succeeded.  Thump.  Straight down into the bed of dirt, where I suddenly never wanted to spend another second of my life.  Then it hit me.  I always wanted a garden, but I didn’t want to be a gardener.  I wanted to be someone who gardened.  I knew what it felt like to do something that I loved.  I get totally lost in it and lose track of time.  Cooking, writing, listening to live music, and hosting friends at my house.  Now we’re talking.  I know if I enjoy something within 2 minutes of trying it.  Such an easy test.  The answer? I just didn’t care enough to follow through with them. 

So, one chipmunk encounter later, I hung up my gardening tools forever.  Whatever they were called.