Dirt.

I love dirt. I do. I love it. Freshly plowed dirt that's cold and damp. The way it squishes between your toes, and the smell.
Ahh~the smell. That's almost as good as the squishing.
When I was little I spent my whole summer with my hands in dirt making mud pies. I decorated them with rocks and flowers.
Then when I got a little older I would spend springs with my Auntie Weezy. We would start out at the greenhouse-picking just the right flowers for the millions of pots at her house. She taught me how to make sure the plants were healthy. She always said it wasn't so much about if the flowers were blooming-but how green the leaves were. She taught me how to mix & match to make up a palate. Then we'd load up the car with flowers, potting soil and head off to the house. I'm sure we had to get an ice cream in there some where! We'd walk all over the hill and set out specific flowers in specific pots. Mixing the colors and heights. Then we'd plant. I can't explain how the dirt between my fingers felt-I didn't even mind that it got under my nails. We'd talk and plant. Always starting in the middle of the pot. Dig the holes~with our fingers~then put some water in and cover up the roots.
Everything I learned about flowers I learned from Weezy. Later, mom and I would go get flowers for our house. I got to do the picking and planting.
It's amazing how much you can learn from a Saturday spent with your aunts. As I got older, I got busier and Weezy started picking and planting her flowers without me.

This year I'm surrounded by concrete and asphalt, instead of fields and tractors. And I miss dirt. I miss the rawness of it. The pure excitement of digging my hands into a pot of dirt, just waiting for flowers. Wiggling my toes in a freshly plowed garden.

~But in a special little corner of Washington DC the Cherry Blossoms are bloomin'. For a few more weeks, I get to experience what people come from all over the world to experience. And those sweet Cherry Blossoms remind me of my Weezy and dirt.~