Zen Zone

I'm visiting my parents in Philadelphia this week. They seem to think that I really am a very good gardener for some reason, since they asked me to go outside and deal with theirs. It's in need of love, but given that they are both in their 70s I think they are doing just fine. My mother asked me to put a shepherd's hook in the ground for her and hang up their petunias. I continued to spend 30 more minutes dead-heading her petunias, for which she was not exactly grateful, more like stunned.

"How could you have taken so long doing that?" she wondered.

It is sort of a zen thing for me, this dead-heading. I just zoned in on this one thing in this one moment, removing dead blooms from the plants by pinching them off at the end of their little stems. Soon the ground around me was littered with little stems and pieces and I was extremely sticky from the plants. (Why are petunias so sticky?)

This is the very thing about gardening that I love. It's so zen. Once I get started on a project I do not get distracted easily; and woe to you who may interrupt a garden-jag! I will take your head off!

Mom learned this today when she kept calling out the window to me, "Eileen! Are you finished? What are you doing? What's taking so long? Is the hook in the ground? Is something wrong with the plants? Where are you? Why aren't you answering?"

OH MY GOD! BE QUIET!

I am in the zone...