Weeding
I thought if I could just pull up these weeds my garden would be perfect.
My garden is a patio courtyard, a circle of tiles holding a glass-top table, framed with a square of flagstones, and between the cracks there are ants, woodlice, the occasional worm, and weeds.
All summer I broke my back bending over at the fold, sun crisping my neck, ripping them from their nice concrete beds. What began as a serene morning coffee in the sun could be the start of an hour pulling roots – my new neighbours must have thought I was a strange character, a hunched-over woman crawling round her yard muttering and occasionally cooing to her cats.
At first I clumsily tore the tops off and left the whole root system to spring up another right in its place, but I quickly learned there’s a knack to it. Grab it firmly as far down as you can, and gently wiggle. It quickly became a compulsive habit. And no matter how many times I pulled the weeds, I could never get round the garden quick enough to outpace their growth.
My boyfriend came over for dinner one night in midsummer. We dined outside, as is my custom on a balmy night, and I felt the itch to pull weeds halfway through the chicken. He humoured me and pulled a few little, easy yielding ones.
“Aha!” I thought. “That’s the trick – get someone to help. Two can get these weeds quicker than one.”
We weeded together a while and formed a small mound of greenery with earth clinging at the feet. It felt good to pull weeds with company. It felt easier, somehow, but perhaps that was the practice which had done that. Before long I stumbled on a true monster of a dandelion. It was one of those stubborn, hellaciously hardy ones that forms flat against the pavers, concealing a network of thick, worm-like roots that stretch out carelessly in their scale.
“You’re better at this than me – help me with this big one,” I asked. He shook his head.
“It’s your garden. I bet you can do it. The trick is to wiggle it in a circle.”
A circle, huh? I hadn’t thought of that one.
I scrambled and gathered all its flat-laying leaves vertical and held the base firmly. I wiggled, circled, wiggled some more.
“It’s not coming out,” I wailed.
“Be patient,” he said. “It’s a big one with deep roots, it’ll take a little more work.”
I repeated the procedure. Suddenly I felt a give, heard a tear, and the biggest, fattest, longest root system I have ever seen came flying out from between the cracks, attached to the weed enclosed in my fist. Fucking yes. I was jubilant.
“You did it!” he told me. “That one’s not coming back.”