Who are you?

Sometimes even I find myself caught in the firing line of contradictory advice:

“Keep digging.”

“Stop digging. The hole won’t get any smaller.”

To be on the safe side I do keep digging until my worst fear – the hole getting bigger – is confirmed.

Holes are conundrums. On one hand, by virtue of being a hole, there is nothing. Just a hole. Which is fine as long as you are not in it. If you want to be swallowed go to Dartmoor. Or somewhere where squelching mud will suck you down. And all you did was set a foot wrong. But at least you won’t leave a hole.

I like gardening. You dig a hole – on purpose. You plant a plant. Fill hole around plant with soil till hole is full – et voila. Come spring all you have to fight are squirrels, deer, cute bunnies, your cat, a neighbour’s dog (the swine),  naturally, snails and slugs – and you wonder why you ever thought gardening and its more serious cousin, farming, were a calling rather than a curse.

You know what a vocation is? When you can’t help yourself. Vocation, a calling, is usually associated with those of a true or imagined artistic bend and those who live in a monastery, defuse landmines and or do other foolish things to keep the status quo going. I tell you, and I mean it: Scrub a floor instead. At least you can eat off it and no one – not least yourself – expects you to win a noble prize.

U