In the wake of the heat waves came the first cool morning. I bounced up at 8:03 am—three hours earlier than usual—to complete the tasks I assign myself every night before sleep. Every night I tell myself that tomorrow would be different, tomorrow would be a success. Yes, tomorrow I will have the motivation to do everything I planned to do so I may be one step closer to my goals. I tell myself that everything would be all right, that there is nothing to fear, nothing to worry about so I may go to sleep peacefully without regret. Then tomorrow would come and I would be tempted by many things. Before I knew, it would be night so the only thing I could do then is to plan out what I would do tomorrow. I would pray away my regrets with soothing promises. Tomorrow, tomorrow would be a success, I tell myself, and then drift away in a fantasy.
But today I woke up at 8:03 am, only three minutes later than I planned—an auspicious start. I ate breakfast, took care of personal hygiene, and walked my dog. Afterwards, I began reviewing calculus for the college placement exam. My mind wondered continuously and my efficiency was terrible. Oh well, at least I reviewed. It was then 10:15 pm so I began working out. I lost the intensity I used to have when I dreamed about becoming a kick boxing champion. After a few sets of push ups, abdominal workouts, and two hundred jump ropes, my mind began to wonder again.
“Ah-yo!” my mothered winced holding her leg, “My keen hurts so much for no reason.” She tried to bend her leg when she went to sit down on the couch but said “Ah-yo” again. I was annoyed.
“What are you talking about? People in the twenty-first century developed brains you know. You work everyday, come home to cook and clean and then go out in your little garden for hours so we can eat some weird looking, diminutive vegetable. Welcome to the twenty-first century, a time when people use logic to see why things go wrong. Stop your ‘Ah-yo’, you brought it upon yourself. Everybody is lazy because you do everything.” She was familiar with my sarcasm so she made a face at me and stabbed me with a knife. The latter part was not true.
“You know,” I continued after a pause, “I am going to level your garden before I go to school.”
“Ha, go ahead, it will be mid-September then.” Good point.
“No, I will take all your soil away and replace it with rocks.”
“Humph, I’ll just have to take all the rocks away again and bring in fresh soil again.”
“What do you mean ‘again’?” I asked. I was puzzled.
“Well, when I first planted, nothing grew. I dug into the ground and found concrete slabs from construction and rock underneath the concrete. So, I removed all the rocks, concrete, and bad soil using a bag. Afterwards, I used the same bag to carry soil from the woods into the garden. I dug away two feet of junk and replaced it with two and a half feet of fresh soil. It took me over a month. After work and in the morning, I spent hours everyday lifting soil, rocks, and concrete. My back and legs were so painful back then.” She was proud.
“That was amazingly stupid of you.” That was my last remark to her before I completed my girly workout. After my disappointing work out, I thought about moving on to my next task. I couldn’t, I kept thinking about the garden. Instead, I rushed up stairs to write down my thoughts.
Here are my thoughts. Looking askance from my room on the second floor, I see rain like needles dropping from the sky. I look down to see the rows of lush green in our little garden; no, it is not our garden, it is my mother’s garden. The tomatoes are big and round and fresher than anything you can buy from the stores. The cucumbers are crisp, prickly, and green. They are not “weird looking, diminutive vegetables”, they are wonderful. Even though I appreciate them, I do not want to encourage my mother’s sacrifice—I am unworthy of her sacrifice. She sacrifices. I admire her so much. I admire how my mother can make barren land conceive.
Chicago, like every other city, is not so different from my mother’s garden. People start out with nothing but a desire to invest, build, and sacrifice…sacrifice. Buildings beyond imagination grew on land that can never grow buildings on its own. Sacrifice. Here I am, lost in stupor of fantasy and ambition, always talking about how I will get my vegetables one day. Here I am, a coward who is intimidated by a school known as “The level of Hell Dante forgot” due to its academic rigor. But how will I ever get my vegetables if I don’t start working on the concrete and rocks?
