A few weeks ago I volunteered at Saint Catherine's Park. The work involved cleaning leaves out of the flower beds and doing a little hedging around the entrance into the park. I enjoyed it so much that after our church initiated "community service day" I've decided to become a regular at the park.
Yesterday was the second morning I've spent in the flower beds at the park and, while it's not planting bulbs or watering, it's really rewarding. I was there from 11-1 yesterday and the first time I stopped to look at my watch it was 12:58. Time flies when you are having fun.
Saint Catherine's Park is filled with the sounds of balls bouncing and children hollering and mom's yelling, "Winston" "Harry" "Emma." This is what I hear while toting a trash bag containing wet, soggy leaves as I dodge new bulbs and step through flower beds full of Springtime. There is new growth everywhere, and I get to be right there as it's coming up. I get to see earthworms and centipedes and things that I've come to miss for the past four years that we've been in NYC. And it's nice to go back week after week and see what has recently emerged.
Gardening puts me back in touch with nature. It's work, but I enjoy it. (And it does feel good to be sore from all the squatting and lifting and bending and reaching the next day too. A workout that doesn't feel like a workout.)
I'm not doing it to meet people or even to be involved in my community (the park is 22 blocks south of our apartment on First Avenue), but I'm doing it for free therapy! For the fragrance of daffodils, for earth under my fingernails, for time alone, for doing something so simple that maybe no one else would want to do- that's why I do it.
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