The Gay Divorcee Goes to Lowe’s

It was because of the rabbit.  

Our pet rabbit managed to escape into the back yard where it was so overgrown, she was able to hide from us for about 8 hours.  Using a stick to prod the underbrush in the far reaches of the yard in an unsuccessful attempt to flush her out, I was forced to face what I had successfully avoided since my divorce three years ago: yard work.

One of the benefits to living in the Pacific Northwest is all the gorgeous greenery.  One of the disadvantages is that, if left unchecked, the greenery can quickly overrun your home like that abandoned hospital on the leper island off the coast of New York City.

I’ve spent a number of minutes over the last three years gazing out at the tiered and complex landscape of my backyard, a yard which I would never have owned on my own, having a black thumb, but which my ex-husband insisted upon.  Now that yard is mine, along with my continued interest in not dealing with it.  But as I watch a third Spring unfold, it’s becoming more and more apparent that somebody has to.  And there are no other somebodies here except the one smirking at me in the mirror.

I started with the baby step of buying gardening gloves on Amazon which gave me a false sense of accomplishment for a few days, but I guiltily suspected there was more to this gardening business than online shopping.  I think gardening is a lot like learning to swim – you are afraid to try it, you put it off as long as you can, and you’re pretty sure you’ll die.  But eventually, you just have to jump into the deep end and figure it out.  Ultimately I knew I couldn’t put it off any longer.  I was going to have to go to Lowe’s.

Don’t get me wrong.  I’ve been to Lowe’s before.  I had to get a weird light bulb there once, and a couple times I had keys made.  I mean, I knew where the store was and all.  But I hadn’t ever ventured into the gardening section and had no idea there was a whole sub-culture going on there.

The Lowe’s parking lot on a sunny Saturday resembled a tailgate party.  There were people in the parking lot eating, socializing and walking their dogs.  A lot of dogs!  Did people come to Lowe’s and stay all day, just to meet other weirdos who over-obsessed about their yards?  It took me forever to park, and I almost ran over a dog too small to see and, boy, did the guy walking the little fucker give me the death look, like I was the one wrong for driving through a dog run!

I finally found a spot in Siberia and, armed with the knowledge of my gardening gloves – “Hey, I’m totally one of you guys!” – strutted confidently across the lot, grabbed a cart and, in my haste to get into the giant greenhouse structure on account of I saw something pink, accidentally went out the in door.  Panicked, I remembered my training in corporate America for successfully maneuvering through any hairy situation: I simply looked at the people blocking my way with a harried and irritated expression, leaving them to believe (I thought) that I knew what I was doing so much that the rules of in and out didn’t apply to me.

The first thing I came across was dirt.  Did I need dirt?  Lots of other people were buying dirt.  I knew I had approximately one billion trillion dead leaves to remove from my yard and once cleared it would probably be pretty bald and maybe I should get dirt.  But why would you put dirt on top of other dirt?  If you just, you know, dump dirt on top of the ground, doesn’t it just get washed away or tracked by squirrels into their squirrel homes where their squirrel mothers would yell, “I just washed that tree hole floor!” or wherever squirrels live?  I wasn’t sure, but I was fairly certain I needed dirt, based on Lowe’s clever marketing campaign of having a shit load of it right out front for easy grabbing.

What’s weird is that a) you have to pay for dirt and b) there are different kinds of dirt.  I didn’t know what kind of dirt I needed.  Should I get the most expensive dirt?  What differentiated the expensive dirt from the cheap dirt?  Did it come from a more privileged background (or just “ground,” as it were)?  Whatever, just pick some dirt.

Dirt is heavy.  See the gay divorcee casually lift a bag of dirt while trying not to appear as if she weren’t at all prepared for the weight and was planning to crumple to the ground all along because everyone knows this is the new safe way to lift things.  I heaved 3 bags of dirt into my basket, having zero clue as to whether that was how much I needed, but defaulting to whatever could fit in the cart.

Then I wandered down the rows and rows of flowers, eavesdropping on others’ educated and spirited discussions about their yard plans, spying on their carts so I would know what to buy without having to actually talk to anybody. 

An aside: doesn’t “perennial” sound like another word for asshole?  Maybe it’s just me.

Wandering around Lowe’s was a humbling experience.  I tried hard to fit in, but something gave me away.  I don’t know what.  Maybe my sequined shoes?  I kept waiting for that Pretty Woman moment where someone would come up to me and say, “We don’t have anything for you here.  Please leave.”

The cashier was very friendly to the couple in front of me who clearly knew their way around a backyard, but when I stepped up she looked at me like I came from that overgrown leper island.  Maybe I got pretentious dirt?

I got all the stuff loaded into the car, drove it home, carried it up my extremely steep driveway (my driveway is the subject of many of my friends’ jokes, and another blog subject entirely), deposited everything in the backyard, and contemplated dying instead of doing anything more because I already had sweat dripping off my nose.

It was at this point that something just went click.  Up until then, I had been cowering in my insecurities, trying to pretend I knew what I was doing when really not only did I not, but I didn’t want to.  But something happens to you when you’re out in public and sweat is dripping off your nose and you can’t even wipe it away because you are wearing those stupid gardening gloves covered in dirt: you stop really giving a shit.

So I embraced it.  I went for it.  I went Joan Crawford on that backyard (“TINA!  Bring me the ax!”) and cleared out years of debris, sweat pouring from all of my body parts now, and blood too, because another great thing about the Pacific Northwest is all the black berry stalks covered in small knives.  But I embraced that too.  I was fucking bleeding and sweating and I smelled like a man and I had the time of my life, even though I knew I would have to wash my bra afterwards, something I normally only do every six months, whether it needs it or not.  It was therapeutic, and endorphin-releasing, and filled me with a sense of accomplishment that physical activity rarely did.  I enjoyed myself.  When I finally cleared out the forest of weeds that had choked a flower bed I announced breathlessly to the tulips, “My name is Karen Bertiger!  I’m here to rescue you!” and then I laughed and laughed, by myself, covered in sweat and blood, high on my achievement of freeing those tulips.

Today my everything hurts.  I have cuts on my arms and legs and there are probably still twigs in my hair even after a shower.  But let me tell you, thanks to those gloves my hands are fucking soft and lily-white.