Keep On Keeping On

Growing up, I spent most days with my grandmother while my parents were at work. My grandmother was a spry old Estonian woman from Saaremaa who had herself grown up on a farm, but her favorite hobbies in her retirement were reading, being a card shark, and gardening. She had a lovely backyard with a lot of flowers: both those native to Maryland and some that reminded her of her homeland. She spent a lot of time out in the garden, and my very earliest memories are of sitting in the grass watching her putter around in the dirt on her hands and knees.

So one weekend afternoon when I’m perhaps barely a year old, I’m at my parents’ house on their day off, just sort of noodling around on the grass behind our townhouse. My mom thinks she hears me babbling to myself and so she quietly sneaks up behind me, hoping to maybe catch some of my first words.

As she gets closer, she notices that I’m pulling up grass in my fat little baby hands while I mutter something. Just fistful after fistful of grass and tossing it in every direction. She gets up right behind me and finally she can make out what it is I’m saying as I rip up the lawn: