Hands in the dirt

Celebrating soil

Around this time every year, I give up on manicures.

There’s no paraffin wax or hot oil treatment that can keep up with my springtime urge to get my hands dirty.

Sure, I have gardening gloves. But here’s what happens.

I finish up the planting or mulching. I wrestle the garden hose into submission, put the trowel away, and tug off my gloves, when inevitably, I see an errant weed that needs pulling.

Or a clump of earth that would definitely look better over there.

Other people have the kind of brain that tells them: “You’re done for the day, do that tomorrow.” My brain doesn’t work like that. Instead, it says: “Must pull weed now!”

Plus, the trowel’s like 25 feet way on the other side of the shed door, which is kind of a %!¢# to close properly. In that moment, my brain doesn’t remember that a 45-second walk to the shed to go get my gloves is less time consuming than the extra 6 minutes it takes to scrape earth out from under my nails.

So, I stick my hands in the dirt.

Every. Single. Time.

White purse women

There are women who can keep a purse white. (And women who can’t.)

If you were born into the Southern roots, go-to-church-on-Sundays lineage, you might have grown up, like me, thinking that keeping a purse white is one of the highest measures of womanhood.

B.B., Earlene and Leboria Smith, sisters from Silsbee, Texas, in the early 1950's. Photo credit: Vintage Black Glamour by Nichelle Gainer on Pinterest, courtesy of the Smiths’ grandson and nephew Marcus Brian Carter.

I did not inherit that talent.

But I did inherit a lot of shame about all the ways my brand of womanhood isn’t quite prim or proper enough. For years, a fleck of dirt under my nails would send me into a spiral of self-reproach. In my 20s and 30s, I was sure I’d never measure up: to the women who create beautiful gardens, welcoming homes, brilliant children, and more equitable communities — all while keeping a pocketbook immaculate.

The shine from their patent leather purses was blinding. So, sometimes it was hard to see that none of their accomplishments happened without hands in the dirt, feet on the pavement and brows a bit sweaty.

I’m older now. And I’ve come to realize that the women I admire most carve beautiful lives not only from carefulness and genius, but also from honest labor.

I’m part of that lineage, too.

These days, I like the muddy hands me. I’m kinder to myself, too.

There’s a picture book for that …

If you’re raising a mud pie chef in the proud lineage of women who get their hands dirty, they might love:

Dig In! by Cindy Jenson-Elliot and Mary Peterson

Dirt: The Scoop on Soil by Natalie M. Rosinsky and Sheree Boyd

Mud artistry

To celebrate soil this spring, try painting with dirt. Mud art is a springboard for teaching the connections between the animals, microbes and plants that help keep soil and humans healthy. Start with a palette of black, brown, red, yellow, gray, even green if you can find it.

1. Gather soil

2. Add water

3. Create something

I first learned about mud painting from the naturalists at the Croydon Creek Nature Center, who lead the Little Explorers program for toddlers.