Maintenance work

“In August in Mississippi there’s a few days somewhere about the middle of the month when suddenly there’s a foretaste of fall, it’s cool, there’s a lambence, a soft, a luminous quality to the light, as though it came not from just today but from back in the old classic times. It might have fauns and satyrs and the gods and—from Greece, from Olympus in it somewhere. It lasts just for a day or two, then it’s gone.” – William Faulkner

The foretaste of fall that Faulkner mentioned is where we have been in Mississippi the last few days. The humidity, after being brutal all summer, has resumed normal levels, and for the first time in many weeks we went 3 days in a row without a heat advisory from the Weather Service. I took advantage of the conflux of nice weather and a weekend to get some things done outside. 

As regular readers know, I live with depression, and so this past spring I was in a bad place, and thus did not get the spring clean up done outside. The muscadine vines did not get pruned, and the mulch did not get put down, and the shrubs were not cut back, and so my yard has suffered all summer from that initial neglect. And by the time I felt up to doing it, the heat was here, and while the mind was willing, the body was weak. 

With gloves on, I tugged at vines and pulled weeds that were firmly established. I cut down dead shrubs and cut back the muscadine vines that threatened to take over the nearby rose bushes. I thinned the goldenrod patches and marveled at the 8 foot tall swamp sunflower stands. 

When done (for the day, not done as in finished with the tasks) I had taken several wheelbarrow loads to the brash pile in the back yard, there is a large vacant space where I can put a new rose bush, and you could see the edges of my driveway once again. 

I sort of despise maintenance work. I begrudge the time spent. I would much rather enjoy watching the butterflies and hummingbirds in my yard than be bent over, ass in the air, grubbing roots out of the beds. 

But if there is no gardening, then there is no garden. 

My therapist pointed out once that, compared to many of her patients, I spend a lot of time doing preventative mental health maintenance. I exercise regularly and take long walks outside, I journal, meditate, and pray, I have a rigorous sleep schedule, and I have pretty strong boundaries in place around my energy. 

Which led me to add it all up, and on a given day, I might spend 2 hours doing things that can be though of as maintenance. Which seems like a lot, honestly. If I am awake 17 hours or so, and I’m working for 8 of them, that means I’m spending almost 1/4th of my free time on maintenance. Just doing things to make sure the other hours of my life are as pain-free as possible. 

There are days I let things slip, just like I let the yard slip this spring. But my body rebels much faster than my yard does, and thus the feedback loop is shorter, and so I return to the rituals and routines faster. Because, as my friends in recovery are wont to say, it works if you work it.