Laissez Faire

I was using the scuffle hoe last week and thinking about disturbing the soil.

If you want plants to grow, you have to leave them alone–laissez faire.   If you don’t want plants to grow, you agitiate the soil they live in to such a degree that their roots are all messed up and they wither and die.  Like the origin of the term itself: when asked a couple centuries ago what would help them thrive, French farmers replied, “Laissez faire“–”leave us alone”.

Every year I make the same old tired joke encouraging Maggie to “Go pull on the plants to make ‘em grow faster.”  This is, of course, absurd as pulling on your vegetable plants is not good for them.  They need a certain stillness to establish a root system that will sustain them throughout the growing season.

I think we all need a certain stillness to let our own roots grow.

A list of suggestions for “The Good Life” I once read reminded readers to “Spend some time alone each day.”  The idea is that being away from other people allows your brain to reflect in tranquility on the goings on of the day or the week or the month or the life you’re in the midst of.  A mind that is constantly engaged is like a tiller running full throttle–effective while it’s running, but likely to run out of gas sooner.

When my mind is engaged on “serious” thinking stuff, I like for it to run full throttle, just not for extended periods.  Thinking takes a lot of energy, and I’m trying to do my part to conserve energy as much as possible.

I find being around people takes a lot out of me.  I say that not in a misanthropic way, but just as a statement of fact.  To listen and to be really present to people runs contrary to my own egocentric nature.  It’s tiring.  Even when gathering with friends for a few hours on a Saturday evening, I find myself by the end of the night talked out, listened out, (mostly the former) or both and needing a few days of quiet time to “recover”.

Lest you think I’m completely self-absorbed, I do have a solid precedent for the merits of solitary time (though, certainly, the comparison stops there).  After healing people, Jesus of Nazareth often went off to the desert to be alone.  Apparently, healing people took something out of him, and time alone “recharged” him.

That’s what I like best about growing vegetables, the amount of time I can spend alone.  I may have a story on the MP3 player rattling in my ears, but most of the time my mind is free of the 10,000 things and is instead just focused on knocking down some weeds, turning over some soil, or configuring a watering system.  While “multi-tasking” is seen as some great virtue these days, thinking of and doing only one thing at a time all by myself is still very rewarding.  At the end of the work day, I find a refreshing 12-ounce and a solitary walk around the property to be my just reward.

I’m not into woodworking or fixing old cars or needlepoint or scrapbooking, but I’m guessing these hobbies provide the same experience for their practitioners.  After a day at work of solving people’s problems, answering questions, repeating yourself, dealing with busybody co-workers, whiny kids or whatever, there’s something therapeutic about spending some time doing just one thing–alone.

Now that our vegetables are mostly in the ground, we have to give them some time alone.  I asked Maggie, “When did we plant those cherry tomatoes? Last week or the week before?”

I’m anxious for them to start growing and then yielding their tasty fruits.

Sure, we’ll water them as needed, maybe give ‘em a splash of the fish/seaweed eau de toilette that Maggie sprays on everything, and we’ll still cultivate the rows, but it’ll take some time alone in the ground for the plants to establish more roots and then start growing into the abundant producers we hope they will be.  We have to be patient with these plants, give them their space, and leave ‘em alone.

Having been married for what seems like forever (really closer to just a decade), I’m grateful Farmer Maggie gives me enough time alone to recharge and to grow (and to talk to myself).  It can’t be easy for her to resist the impulse to prune my annoying habits or to splash me with the fish/seaweed spray, but resist she does.  While she’s preparing dinner, I’m off alone wandering in circles out back.  And I think she’s OK with that.

Hopefully, the alone time has allowed me to grow into a better, more fruitful person…

Justin