She’s baaaack!!!

Two months and two days.

That’s how long it’s been since I officially started living solo. No more mom and household help to cook and clean and wash and whatnot for madamoiselle moi. No more handy-dandy Mr Maintenance Man to hammer and tinker and be all-around knight in shining armor either. So, beginning two full moons ago, I have been educating myself in all matters domestic – from installing bathroom storage to dealing with leftovers and everything in between – with that most archaic yet arguably most effective method of learning: doing it yourself, all by your awesome lonesome. Prior to that, I have managed to find, acquire, and move into the abode in question using the same method (a.k.a. winging it). Within a week after moving into a completely empty house, I have managed to create, and maintain, a working household, all without taking a single day of vacation leave from work – a damn good job for a newbie, if I may say so myself. (This is my blog, so I get to brag all I want – HA!)

Today, Saturday, I spent my morning clearing my backyard of weeds. Yes, ladies and gents, this city girl has two groaning jumbo garbage bags worth of unwanted and unchecked foliage growth to show for her Saturday morning, armed with nothing but her own two absurdly tiny hands and a touch of elbow grease.

It started out innocuously enough. I first noticed the uninvited guests about a month after the move – a little shoot here, a beginning growth there – but hadn’t the foggiest notion what to do about it. After all, I had more than enough on my plate to be getting on with, just with the indoor stuff. Inconsiderate little buggers that they are, they just kept merrily reproducing, aided and abetted by daily afternoon showers and disgustingly fertile soil, while I pondered this newest addition to the logarithmically growing list of domestic conundrums clamoring for my attention. Within a month, what started out as a mildly annoying gate-crash (or backyard-crash, as it were) had turned into an all-out invasion. Thus did I find myself this sunny Saturday morning looking out at a tropical ecosystem where my white-pebble-blanketed backyard used to be.

There was nothing for it. I grabbed the first bunch of green I could get my hands on and just pulled. And kept on grabbing and pulling and tugging and yanking, paying no heed when the bright morning sky turned gray and loosed fat drops of wet onto the mini-jungle that was once my backyard. I greeted Saturday afternoon with dirt on my nails, sweat on my brows, and rain on my face. And enough grass to feed a herd of cattle (again, this is my blog, so… ha!)

Strangely cathartic, that was. With each give of the soil as I pulled out yet another bunch of grass, roots, and earth, I felt lighter, freer, less and less fettered by the myriad mundane concerns that have begun to define my 2-month-old solitary existence. I began to feel more like my old (or young), carefree, unshackled self, free to write if i wanted to and pleasantly surprised to find myself finally able to, after more than a year of verbal constipation. I suppose that’s the sense of relief men feel after they’ve pummeled some poor unsuspecting soul to bits, when they’ve got something on their minds that they can’t, or won’t, process verbally. Tsk, tsk, boys…

I guess rhizome isn’t a kickass triple-letter-triple-word-score 7-tile bonanza on Scrabble after all – who knew? Oh wait, it still is. Silly me.