the little patch of sand

Last fall, when I was still enthusiastic about starting my life here in Pott, I actually bought a shovel, hoe, and two bags of compost and dug out one garden bed. I put off sowing fall vegetable seeds until it was too late, sowed them anyway (along with some bulbs), and amazingly some scraggly red lettuce and snow peas made it through the winter and the neglect. The lettuce is bitter, and the snow peas produce the ugliest, blotchy pods. A pair of tulips bloomed for their week in the spring and are now just headless stalks. The irises never did bloom.

Who knows what possessed me to weed this half-hearted attempt of a garden. Maybe it was the six sunflower seeds I picked up at a BP gas station. Sure, what the hell, plant them anyway.

Lee comes up behind me as I'm working. After deliberation, he says, "You know you're trying to get something to grow in sand, don't you?"

Yes, and I am embarrassed for a little bit. But of course, I knew it was sand all along. And really, this garden isn't for produce, but just an excuse to get out of the classroom.