The Weeds Get us to Touch the Earth

I spent many hours with my husband pulling out some weeds in our backyard last summer. They give us great green ground coverage most of the year, but when the days start to dry out, their little burs can be painful to step on.

We realized how incessant these little plants were as we pulled them out.

I have long known weeds are just any plant with a label: annoying to us, but serving a purpose for something else. Most weeds, dandelions included, work very hard to pull up deep nutrients from the soil, much further than other plants, helping them to be incredible survivors. Dandelion teas are actually a new age healing cure. I should say, a newly re-discovered old age remedy.

They even break off really easily when you try to pull them- another survival instinct.

As I pulled these weeds out, hours at a time, waking up with sore hands from the minuscule task of pulling at their tiny base to get as much of the plant I could get, I could not help but feel guilty. I love plants. I want the greenery, but why am I so violent to this plant? Well, my sons and our family like to walk around barefoot, put blankets on the ground, and those little suckers just end up everywhere. That would appease me for awhile. These little guys had to go.

Spending hours in the grass, staring at the grass, you realize the animal in us, the hunter. On a hike, we can jump back into that mode, realizing the complexity of the human hand, its dexterity, how no tool works better, and how any gloves are only annoying, but also necessary. You realize how your eyes start to focus and identify and distinguish one green from another. I realize my arms get an allergic reaction if I relax too much, full belly in the grass, as I look for these weeds like the dad in “Honey, I Shrunk the Kids,” though it feels better on my back. You realize a lot of things when you spend hours on a task like that.

I also received a lot of bad news last year, in that season, and the following, as we had to fill the patches of dirt with new grass. Trial and error finding what would work, until we finally just bought the rolls of sod from the store. My husband had even tried a whole method of growing his own seed from some gardener online, that needed to soak in a wet ball in our bathroom for several days… which left a funny weed smell in our home for a couple weeks. This too, became a memory, something we can laugh at today.

I still remember pulling each arm out, impressed by how far each tentacle spreads out above and below the grass. And the best times to pick the grass, about a week after the grass is cut, and about to be cut again, since this plant grows so much faster than grass. And to do so when the soil is moist, often in the early morning, which is also the busiest part of the day for humans like us, but usually in the sun soaked end of the day, when I have the interest in spending my lesser mental energy-taxing part of the day on a task such as this. But I did spend at least one morning, an hour or so before anyone woke up, on the job.

I remember the conversations had while pulling this weed out. I remember the people I was on the phone with, the audiobooks listened to, and my sons running up to me, 2 and 4 years old, trying to help. “This one, mama no like this one,” they would say. And help by bringing mega piles into the compost garbage can. I would be amazed at their ability, and interest, in helping me hunt this grass.

I also remember the bad new I received that summer we set on this task. My dad found out he had cancer. My mind went to mush. I needed something like this to ground me, to stare at, to be angry at.

Prior years had gone by that we considered starting this task, always pushed it off. We knew it would be a whole thing, a huge task to try to get rid of it, but never believed it would have taken us what it did. Some say you should take out a whole layer of all your grass down a foot or more and start fresh, that they are so insistent.

And this year, I pulled a couple in the front yard. Maybe one day I will start that side, once I am ready for the whole thing again. For now, there is just a square foot of grass missing in a location my sons love to walk with me, hand in hand, around and around the beautiful tree in front. One of these days, when one of us hurts our feet on the burr, maybe I will get started there. Maybe I am looking for a reason to get started.

But looking back, sometimes I needed a reason to stand in the grass, to ground my energy with the earth’s. Without a task, we rarely find the reason to be in soil for so long.

So I thank you, little weed, for giving me a puzzle to work on, while my body and mind got a chance to heal in the sunlight, feet touching the earth, hours spent with something to do so distinct from my typical day inside, staring at a screen.