Do You Think I'm Too Neurotic? Do You? Do You?

Now that we will be moving in two weeks, there has been more interest from the soon-to-be-old neighbors such as, "What does it look like" and "How many bedrooms" and that sort of thing. But not ONCE has anyone asked about the garden (mock surprise!).

I brought my neighbor and her two kids over yesterday to see the place - our first visitors. Although the house is empty still, all the work is done and all we need is to move in. We did the requisite tour and then went outside to see the garden (at my insistence). As I bemoaned the lack of imagination the previous owners had in the garden, planting only Hostas in the shade and azalea bushes in the sun, she turned and looked at me thoughtfully and remarked, "At least it has something around it. Ours is just dirt."

And indeed when I thought about it, her garden is mostly dirt because their house is under the shade of about 10 oak trees from the surrounding woods. Not even the grass will grow.

I decided that this was not the right time to suggest plants that she could put in the shade.

Instead, I realized two things:

1) That no one I know obsesses about gardening the way I do

and

2) Maybe I need to meet some new people : )

Of course I could ponder the idea of finding fulfillment in other ways as well, but that would be too difficult.

Ha.

I allowed myself to take the day off from the garden today because I have become, well, I've become painfully obsessive. I think maybe it's easier to focus on one thing to the exclusion of everything else when everything else is so irritating or overwhelming, like moving. Like going to two funerals in one week. And all the rest of the stuff that creeps up from time to time.

The garden is a refuge but it shouldn't be my holding cell, my padded room.

Today I let myself out and found out that I have things to do and people to talk to, and that was at least as refreshing as dirt.