Confessions of
an Instinctively Mutinous Baby Boomer
and
Her Parable of a Tomato Plant
by
Marsha Roberts
INTRODUCTION
You know how when your jeans start getting tight,
you tell yourself you had the dryer set too hot and they shrunk? Deep down you know you’re gaining weight, but
you just can’t bring yourself to admit it.
That’s
how I was dealing with what was going on in the lives of me and my family. We had set the dryer too hot and now things
didn’t quite fit right anymore. I think
this comes under the category of no-problem-too-big-to-ignore, a characteristic
I had always joyfully embraced because it went hand-in-hand with my most
defining quality.
The
fact is, I was born an incurable dreamer, which is in and of itself
fundamentally rebellious. No status quo
for me. Waiting just around the next
corner was something better, I was certain of it.
Remember
what it felt like to be a kid and believe that Peter Pan could shake pixie dust
on you and show you how to fly? All you
had to do was think wonderful thoughts.
I could do that, no problem, but I wasn’t interested in waiting around
for Mr. Pan to show up. Why couldn’t I
be Wendy and Peter Pan and Tinkerbell all rolled into one? After all, it was the 60’s and anything was
possible. We weren’t going to accept
things just because they had always been that way -- defiance was embedded in
our DNA.
Like
when I was in first grade and the teacher handed out our new reader, Fun with Dick and Jane. There I was, all of six years old and I was
incensed! What a stupid book! Jane watches Dick have fun -- exactly how is that fun for Jane? I wasn’t about to
spend my life cheering the boys on while they had all the adventures. I wanted to fly off to Neverland and fight
pirates with the boys, not be on the
sidelines like my mother had been. Not
me. Like so many other gals at the time,
I intended to do something about it, we knew we could.
Along
the way this incurable dreamer started believing in angels. And when I say angels, I mean actual, bona
fide, flying angels that helped me out and kept me safe. I also believed in miracles. Not as some remote ethereal possibility, but
as a real part of my life. To me
miracles were absolutely inevitable.
Life felt quite charmed.
But
recently I began to feel that I might have been wrong about these things. And for someone who thought of herself as an
eternal optimist, that was very jarring.
I
had been intensely busy juggling so many seemingly important things, and
dropping more of them than I caught, that life just wasn’t magical
anymore. You’ve probably felt that way
at one time or another. Maybe you feel
that way now.
Without
consciously knowing it, I had taken a wrong turn in the road. And because I’m a certified road warrior who
has logged over a million miles both here and abroad, if I happen to take a
wrong turn, I know it almost immediately.
But this time I wasn’t driving and I didn’t have a clue how I had gotten
so far off course. And that’s exactly
what I needed: a clue.
All
I knew was that somewhere underneath the exasperating minutia of my frazzled
daily life was the twinkle in my eye, the sass in my walk and the dreams in my
heart. I didn’t know when I had lost
them, but I had, and I missed them with an urgency that caught me off
guard. It was like catching a whiff of
childhood, instantly poignant. I longed
for the magic.
The
question was, how would I find these
precious things again? Where do you go
to look for a twinkle?
The answer came in the form of an unwelcome tomato
plant that grew into a parable and eventually led to a spiritual journey I
hadn’t anticipated. Spiritual? Yes, no doubt about it, but essentially what
I did was go in search of my twinkle.
I was a
grown-up Nancy Drew out to solve the mystery and thought the best way to start
would be to go back to the time when my sparkle had been as natural as
breathing. I wanted to see my magic
crystallizing in the air before me like breath on a winter’s morning and
experience the same sense of wonder I had when I was a child. My theory was, if there was a parable in a
tomato plant, perhaps there were other parables from my life that I hadn’t
noticed before, waiting for me to discover the enchanting nugget buried
inside. Maybe what I was looking for
would be hidden in one of those nuggets.
Life had it’s challenges and disappointments when I
was young too, but I had managed to keep my essence intact, my own personal
magic. Had it simply been youth, or was
this life-force still available now? I
didn’t know, but I had to find that
stubborn, indomitable, fearless gal I had once been. I missed her and I needed to know her secret
formula for keeping her verve day after day, year after year.
For me, the outcome of this quest was no less than
life changing. My twinkle wasn’t as far
away as I had imagined and after I found it, the problems that had once seemed
insurmountable were no longer so daunting.
I would love if the stories I share with you here help you uncover
meaningful parables of your own. Perhaps
you will also be guided to a previously unseen path full of angels and miracles
and wondrous new possibilities. I hope
so. The tales that follow are the stones
that mark the trail.
Chapter One
The Parable of the Tomato Plant
When
I was five years old I got kicked out of kindergarten. No kidding, it’s true.
In
the late fifties, it was common for kindergarten to be held in a church. Ours was easy walking distance from our house
and I remember holding my mom’s hand as she stormed back home, practically
dragging me down the sidewalk.
“What
does she mean you can’t postpone gratification?
Can she even spell
gratification? How old is she
anyway? Nineteen? You have more brains in your little finger
than she does in her whole head, Marsha,” talking more to herself than to me.
That’s
right. I got kicked out of kindergarten
because I couldn’t postpone gratification.
I still have a hard time with that one.
What
does postponing gratification have to do with a tomato plant? Well, I’ll tell you.
First off, I need to clarify something. I’m not a real gardener -- just someone who
has found that rooting around in the dirt is good for the soul. Somehow when I’m pulling weeds and re-potting
a dying plant, I manage to forget all the worries that normally plague my
mind. Go figure. The thing is, there’s that instant
gratification of seeing flowers grow, blossom and flourish (under very little
attention!) that has hooked me over the past several years.
There you go. The instant gratification of it was simply
irresistible to me.
And then there was The Year Of
The Tomato Plants. I never wanted to
grow tomatoes. I wasn’t interested in
having a vegetable garden of any sort.
But the way it all happened, I really didn’t have a choice.
I
guess I should back up a bit and let you know how the tomato plants came into
my life in the first place. It was
spring and I was relieved we had made it through the long, frigid winter. High time for the distraction of gardening.
Business
troubles and financial woes had landed us in a no-matter-how-hard-you-work-you-don’t-seem-to-be-able-to-solve-the-problem
kind of a year. Hasn’t everyone had a
year like that? We’ve had several off
and on, but it had been a while and frankly, as grown-up Baby Boomers, we
thought we were past those times. Think
again.
So
it was April and one of the few credit cards that still worked was Home
Depot. How cool is that? I bought potting soil and garden soil and
flats of flowers that would bloom throughout the summer...
And
then Imogene came over and propped her elbow on the top of our fence, “Do you
still want some of my tomato plants?”
You
have to understand, I couldn’t possibly say no
to that question. How do I explain this
delicately? Imogene was one of those
neighbors that had been, let’s call it tough
to love ever since we moved into our house several years before. Her huge yard and garden were not just well
kept, they were pristine. She did all
the work herself and didn’t think highly of those of us whose gardens were not
exactly what you would describe as immaculate.
The previous year my husband,
Bob, had casually commented on how nice her tomato plants looked as he was
walking down the alley. The next day,
Imogene appeared at our doorstep with a basket full of tomatoes. To say this was surprising is an understatement
of massive proportions.
But the big shocker was yet to
come: the tomatoes were fabulous! These scrumptious orbs were the reason
tomatoes were called a fruit in the first place. The only other time I had tasted tomatoes
that good had been in Italy. I didn’t
think you could get a tomato that delicious here -- and from Imogene? How could something so delectable, so
mouth-watering, come from her?
Of
course we thanked her and bragged appropriately and sincerely on said
tomatoes. More tomatoes were in the
offing and later on in the season she asked the crucial question, “Would you
like to have some tomato plants of your own next year?” No way in hell could I turn her down. If I said no,
my un-neighborly rudeness would have been the talk of her and her dog-walking
cronies for days! So I sputtered with
fake enthusiasm, “Yeah, sure, that’d be great.”
The
following spring, with her deceptively nonchalant inquiry, Imogene had called
my bluff.
The
garden was my escape from the harsh reality of unrequited work. That’s when you love your work and it doesn’t
love you back: lots of effort with no
money in return. Which is the downside
of working for yourself sometimes, especially when you’re in the business of
dreams, like we’ve always been. But, I’m
getting ahead of myself. Back to that
particular April.
There have been phases in my life when I was
terrific at managing my time. This
wasn’t one of them. Here I was, having
discovered the perfect diversion, and somehow in my brilliant, grand scheme of
planning, I found three or four hours on the hottest days in each and every
week of that unusually oppressive spring to plant my garden. We’re talking about 98° to 100° with 99% humidity. Basically sweltering. Sometimes you have to take what you can get,
so I brought my music outside, a fan to cool off with, my dogs to follow me
around asking if they could help me dig -- it was all good.
Right in the middle of sweating out the day’s
problems, enjoying a few stolen hours for gardening, Imogene pops up with her
loaded question, “Do you still want some of my tomato plants?”
If
you have gardened, you know how much work it is to say yes to that question. If you
haven’t, trust me, it’s a lot of work to say yes to that question!
It
turned out that Imogene had grown the tomato plants from seeds. Eight little pots of healthy plants nurtured
into existence just for me. They were
10” tall, give or take an inch, when she proudly presented them. I tried to appear grateful. These tomato plants were, in truth, superior,
in spite of my questionable attitude.
They were also a present from a neighbor I never expected a gift
from. But, all I could think was: Oh,
this is just great. Where the heck am I
going to put them? And how was I going
to find the time to dig out an area large enough for them?
And
for the next month I didn’t find the time.
I set the flat of plastic pots in a good location (where Imogene and her
buddies couldn’t see them when they took their twice-a-day walks down the
alleyway) and watered them daily along with the rest of my garden. Nevertheless, after several weeks I could see
that these fine tomato plants were going to die if they weren’t put in the
ground where they could grow. It was the
end of May, summer was fast approaching.
Memorial Day weekend was coming up, and I couldn’t postpone the task any
longer for fear that Imogene would discover my neglect.
I
had found the perfect spot running along our side of the next door neighbor’s
fence, but this ground had not been touched for a very long time, which is why
I hadn’t incorporated that section into my garden to begin with. But, there really wasn’t another suitable
area that got enough sun and wasn’t full of flowers already, so I picked up the
shovel and started digging. It wasn’t
long before I changed to a pick ax. This
was some seriously hard ground.
I
reared back with all my strength over and over again, breaking up the
soil. Then I sat down in the dirt,
sifted through it, taking out the grass, rocks and weeds. My dogs Smokey and Shadow thought this was
all very entertaining. Mom had finally
revealed the dog within, on hands and knees, burrowing into the ground. Smokey, my floppy-eared German Shepherd mix,
was satisfied to lay in the shade and watch (after carefully positioning himself
where he could guard the perimeter!).
But Shadow was not to be left out of this blissful endeavor. Our shaggy little version of a black lab
exercised his rights as the perpetual puppy and happily joined in the digging.
This
activity was obviously tremendous fun for Shadow, but not for me. In the same amount of time and with half of
the effort, I could have enlarged my flower garden with newly budding plants
that would reward me with color in a matter of days. Tomato plants were not instant gratification
on any level. But nonetheless, I
dutifully continued my assignment.
I
dug some more and sifted some more all day long. By the end of the first day I had created a
nice bed for the tomato plants, but the soil was in terrible shape.
The
next morning it was off to Home Depot for garden soil and stakes for the tomato
plants to grow on. After I unloaded the
van, let the dogs out to join me, got my fan and water bottle, I had everything
I needed in place just as the sun was at the peak of its heat. Perfect timing as always!
I dumped bag after bag of dark
brown soil into my new little vegetable plot and used a shovel, a rake and
sometimes my bare hands to work the rich soil into the hard dirt. Shadow couldn’t keep his paws out of it. This fresh, fertile ground must have smelled
like dog chocolate to him -- too good to resist! So when I was digging on one end, he was
merrily and energetically working the other end, with his goofy grin and his
nose covered in dirt.
By this time I was exhausted, but
starting to feel that sense of accomplishment when you’ve tackled a tough job
and it’s almost done. Done is getting
the tomato plants in the earth, which was the simplest thing of all once the
soil was ready.
As
the sun went down that day I was contentedly watering my new tomato garden and
by the next morning you could literally see those plants respond to the
attention -- all perky, lifting their fragile leaves to the sky. Oh good, a little instant gratification after
all!
I
water my garden every day in the summer, twice when it’s real hot. And that June was a scorcher. As I walked through the backyard every
morning and evening with the garden hose, an entire rainbow of vibrant flowers
greeted me. I was so pleased with the
colorful blossoms filling up the area that I hardly noticed the background
greenery, which was in fact the tomato plants.
But
I continued to faithfully water all my plants and life went on. Back to the no-matter-how-hard-you-work
issues of business during that summer that kept me pre-occupied, ridiculously
busy and more than a little concerned about our situation.
It
was the weekend before the 4th of July, a Sunday -- I remember
because my younger sister and I had a standing phone appointment on Sunday
afternoons that summer. I called her on
my cell phone (free weekends, you know) and to get a better connection, I sat
on the shaded bench in the corner of our yard beneath the magnolia tree, which
was, as it happened, right next to my tomato garden. As we gabbed, I realized that my tomato
plants had grown surprisingly tall, so I stood up next to them. They were taller
than I am and since I’m 5’10” the plants had to be at least 6 feet! I thought quickly about when I planted them,
Memorial Day weekend, which meant it had been approximately a month since they
were put in the ground. How could these
plants have grown more than five feet in one month?
I
signed off my phone call and sat on the bench, looking at the astonishing
growth of the tomato plants with a sense of wonder. Then I heard a still, quiet voice inside of
me, Marsha, if I can make a tomato plant
grow this much in one month, think of what I can do in your life in the same
period of time...
It’s been several years since that moment. I still think about those tomato plants, those
sprawling vines with their leaves reaching out to the sun and new buds ready to
supply an abundance of fruit. And I’m
still amazed at how fast they grew, astounded at God’s handy work.
So today, as I prepare the soil of my life the best
I can, I pray I can have just one thirty day period of time that I grow as much
as a tomato plant.
Thank you for visiting my spot on this blog site!
You can find more about the Mutinous Baby Boomer here:
Website: http://www.mutinousbabyboomer.com/
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