Post-COVID Gardening and Voltaire

Full disclosure of facts: I did absolutely no gardening last year. No flowers, no herbs, no weeding, no mulching. Last spring, COVID was new and not only did I not want the health risks of shopping for plants, but I was also intensely happy not leaving my house.

This year, I had only the smallest goals. I set out this morning for some impatiens for the planters on my front steps. It sounded simple.

I never garden without thinking of Voltaire’s Candide. (Studying French literature will get you nowhere in life, but it will remind you of life when you’re nowhere.) It was Voltaire’s conclusion that “we must cultivate our garden”. What he meant by that, many have speculated. After a naïve protagonist travels the world and finds his belief in optimism skewered and flambéed, the cultivation of the garden is what he reduces his wisdom (or ambivalence) to.

One professor’s theory was that Candide’s conclusion was a call to action. Cultivating our garden meant doing whatever we can do to improve a corrupt world.

Another professor also believed it was a call to action, but on a smaller scale. Taking on the problems of the world was overwhelming; Candide’s reasoning was to act locally and simply.

With all due respect to both professors, I believe “il faut cultiver notre jardin” is another way of saying “mind your own business”. After all, Voltaire wrote the book in response to the philosophy of perpetual optimism–those people who believe everything happens for a reason and something good always comes from it. Like Candide, I have also traveled, and I have also seen life propel some souls to greatness and kick others into pits of misery. (I teach in public schools.) A person could be driven to insanity trying to find reasons or benefits. After all I’ve seen and experienced, I think “mind your own business” is about all any of us can do.

I could be wrong. I’m not Voltaire, and maybe he is rolling ses yeux at me right now.

I haven’t forgotten the gardening. The impatiens are purchased, along with bags of dirt. It’s a sunny day, temps in the low eighties, an occasional breeze. I’m expecting some difficulty due to a year of total inattention to the planters, but I am not prepared.

Trees are now growing in my planters. For the second time since I moved to this house in 2013, I also find bamboo has taken hold. You may be wondering how I haven’t noticed this for a year. One, I move through life thinking about things like French literature instead of processing important visual stimuli. Two, I don’t use the front steps. I wish no one would. If they were normal, removing trees from planters would not be a problem.

My front steps feel like this any time of the year:

A few things you should know about me:

1. I am allergic to everything outside. Everything.
2. The sun hates me.
3. Insects love me.
4. I’m not fit for any kind of physical activity.
5. I forget all of the above when I attempt to do any gardening.

Stage One: I manage to balance on the steep stairs and pull trees out by the roots, losing most of the dirt in the planters. Sweating begins. Flying insects are attracted to sweat. I’m slapping every bug that lands on me and realizing that if I fall down the steps, I have to rely on a neighbor noticing and finding it unusual that I’m lying in front of my house in a pool of blood. (I don’t have a phone on me–no pockets, which is a topic for another blog post about women’s clothing.)

Stage Two: I’m still being very careful as I lug the bags of dirt to the top of the steps. Shoveling dirt in with my garden trowel will take too long. I attempt to pour instead. I lose half a bag of dirt to the bushes by the steps and stumble across the narrow step. Ever watch the Olympics and see someone almost fall off a balance beam? Picture that, but with an old, fat woman slinging a bag of dirt everywhere instead.

Stage Three: I have another bag of dirt and I return to the slow tedium of shoveling it into the planters with a trowel. For whatever reason, red wasps want to watch. If you’ve never met a red wasp, they have no respect for personal space and will sting without provocation. I assume these Kentuckian wasps don’t speak French, so I insult each one with, “Dégage d’ici, fils de salope“. Again, it involves the flailing arms of a gymnast ready to go home without a medal.

Stage Four: I’m wearing gloves which makes planting the impatiens awkward and keeping sweat out of my eyes difficult. Something smells like merde, and when I look at the t-shirt sleeve I’ve been wiping my face on, I see that I’ve been rubbing dirt and some kind of merde across my forehead all this time. It’s at this point that I remember being in this predicament before and wondering why Voltaire or anyone would suggest this connerie as a solution for anything. Did Voltaire even have a garden? I’ve Googled it. He did, which at this point, me gonfle.

Stage Five: One side of the steps has low-hanging tree branches. I’ve tried avoiding them, but I notice something touching the back of my neck when I stand to survey the horrible job I’ve done so far. Yes, a tree leaf has touched me. Now it’s a game of beat-the-clock, and as I’m trying to clear out the last two planters and plot the impatiens in their new home, I feel the rash traveling across my shoulders, and soon I see it on my arms. By the time I get to the last planter, my eyes are beginning to swell shut.

Stage Six: Impatiens are somewhat planted. Dirt covers the stairs. My face is swollen. I’m covered in a rash and bugs are biting me. My legs are shaking from balancing on the steps. My arms are shaking just for the hell of it. I stink and I’m dehydrated. I can still smell the merde on my face and clothes. I gather all the supplies and garbage with two stops in mind; the garage first, and then to the kitchen where the Benadryl awaits if I can still see when I get there.

Somehow, I still respect Voltaire’s work, if not the suggested activity at the end of it. While peeling Benadryl from its foil and plastic sheet, I’m still quoting Candide, more or less. Il faut cultiver notre putain jardin.

Yes, Voltaire, I was out there minding my own business, trying to brighten the landscape, focusing on my little corner of the world instead of the vast disappointment that humanity seems to be when viewed as a whole. I’m not sure it solved anything.

Clean again and in a Benadryl haze, the entry to my house looks worse than before, I decide. N’importe quoi. Je m’en fou.