A Trip To the Ma-All Sends the Tranquil Gardener Racing Back To His Garden

A couple of weeks ago, I gave my son a ride to the Stoneridge Mall. We made the long drive in heavy rain from Lafayette to Pleasanton and received a refreshing baptism on our walk from the car to the mall entrance. 

I hadn't been to a mall in years and straightaway I remembered why. The light was bright and harsh, the storefronts were flashy, the air was strangely warm and disembodied music echoed off dry, polished floors. I felt as though we'd stepped into someone else's dream, which in itself wouldn't have been so jarring if that someone had been a friend or relative, that is, someone who knew and cared about us. But I was pretty certain that this someone was a corporate entity somewhere that dreamed only about what was in our wallets. 

My first steady job was at a mall. I was 18 and went to work at Sun Valley selling shoes, first at Hardy Shoes (we called it “Hardly Shoes”) and then at Macy's. There's been a lot of rainwater under the bridge since then and I've spent the vast majority of my life outdoors. My different drummer has always had mud on his boots. 

And so when I arrived back home I had to stand in the rain for a while, breathe some real air and contemplate our backyard micro-farm. It was looking a bit ragged and weedy and it was pulsating with life. 

On my right was a bed of fava beans and fenugreek. Beyond that was a bed of last season's parsley, a cover crop of bell beans, peas, vetch and oats, and hundreds of self-sown nigella seedlings. Farther along were chick peas, giant red mustard, chard, garlic, tulips just pushing through the soil, red clover and yarrow. On my left were more favas, whose flowers have lately been home to numerous lady-bird beetles feasting on aphids, Romanesco broccoli and Laciniato kale. And everywhere there was mustard and wild barley and, closer to the ground, finer grasses I haven't identified. There were slugs and earwigs and the soil was thick with earthworms. Outside the deer fence, next to my neighbor's blossoming plum tree, two does stopped grazing and looked up to contemplate me. The only sound was the soft rain on the fava leaves. 

Even within the confines of a garden, the natural world offers its wares to us for communion rather than for simple consumption. With senses awakened and attuned, we are instantly connected to the earth. Feeling the air, touching the soil, we respond to all the living things around us. We have only to compare the scent of a humble carrot flower to any of the scents at a perfume counter to know the depth of that connection. (By the way, if you're growing carrots this spring leave a few in the ground to go to flower. Not only will the flowers intoxicate and ground you, but they'll entice beneficial insects as well.) The connection can be so strong that we become rooted to a real place, bending like saplings as the seasons pass through our branches.

 In nature's mall we may not find every gadget or fashion we could ever want, but if we're able to turn off the machinery of modern life long enough to pay attention we will find countless things beyond value.