I'm Such a Dirty Girl

There’s a picture of me taken when I was five years old. It’s 1977. I’m standing in a field next to the freshly poured foundation of my family’s new home. Well, new to us. It was actually an abandoned farmhouse my parents got for free. All they had to pay for was the construction of the basement and the moving fees. The rest they bought with a currency made of sweat and elbow grease. My dad and grandpa spent the summer remodeling the old house that would be our family’s home for the next three decades.

I love this picture of me. I’m in pigtails and a cookie monster tank top. My legs are brown and my face expectant. But what I love most about this picture?

Is the dirt.

Because even though it’s a blurry shot I am fairly certain I’m covered in it. My outstretched palms, I can assure you, are filthy, my fingernails harboring more mud than the bottom of a shoe, and more than likely my legs really aren’t as tan as they look.

They’re probably just that dirty.

It was glorious.

Because on a farm life happens in the dirt. The soil holds the secret to each crop’s success or failure, the muddy puddles of spring bring endless opportunities for farm kids to slosh and explore, and the family’s gardening is carefully planted, tended, and harvested in the earth’s cool darkness.

Dirt is life. And it’s everywhere.

But it’s not 1977 anymore and I no longer live on that farm. I gave up my country mouse ways long ago and traded them in for a little historic house on a shaded street. Although my cottage did come with something spectacular: Dirt.

And a lot of it.

The home was meticulously landscaped when I bought it and it is my honor and joy to maintain its endless perennial gardens, trim the roses, and make way for each spring’s release. The sun was barely up on Saturday when I found myself intending just to do a bit of yard work. Two hours later, I hadn’t started anything I’d set out to do (like mowing) but instead had dug out two dead bushes, edged the front yard, weeded the shrubs, trimmed two bushes, and dug out a couple dozen dandelions. I was filthy and bloody.

But mostly.

Happy.

For although I wasn’t wearing a cookie monster shirt and pig tails I was very much at home surrounded by the scent of earth and flowers, soil and sun.

Doing what I love to do most.

Playing.

In the dirt.