Exactly Where, And How, Does It Go?

I used to lie in bed at night and wonder exactly how we were losing topsoil, as my gardens were my only frame of reference, and my rich, thick topsoil was being replenished each year due to copious amounts of compost, leaves, wood chips and manure.  I couldn't picture how topsoil got lost.  Where'd it go?

Then I'd wonder if other women fretted about dirt.  Tossing and turning, not ever hearing this discussed when I was with a bunch of women, I finally decided that they, like me, just must be keeping these thoughts to themselves?  Instead they discuss fashion, families, or frou-frou when out in public?

I'm clearly socially stunted.

I've spent at least the last 20 years so mind-numbingly busy that I've neglected several of my permaculture garden beds around the house.  Not so much in The Big Back Garden, as that's where we eat, but last night I worked around one of the original daylily gardens and was happy as a clam to note how rich the soil still appeared to be, thus sparking some well fed weeds, lemme tell ya.

Weeding calms my mind.  Sweating doesn't bother me, bugs generally don't bite me, and while the kids continued their long running game of Shoot-out, I weeded like a professional. Our 8 dogs nipping at their heels, having a blast running and barking.

Grandma ended the game when she brought over a dish of banana pudding.  By 'brought over' I mean from her kitchen to mine, our houses are both fully equipped, attached by a hallway at the back of my family room.

I stopped my work also to indulge in dessert.

I'd had a momentous moment.  No one is incarcerated right now, no one in jail or prison.

I'd had a long talk punctuated by a series of texts with one just released.  He'd left the state immediately last week, found his birth mom, and was rejecting her verbally to me which makes me uncomfortable.  "You need to respect her," I reminded him.

"Well you're the one who hung around to raise me," he said.  The irony that he'd returned to her should be expected.  My kids have about a thousand questions churning within them, a piece of them emotionally held hostage by the past.  I get it.

But to me the history itself doesn't matter, she deserves his respect as a woman.

I seriously doubt if any of the birth moms represented in my home were ever nurtured or treated properly, thus their later inability to function as a parent.  It's just sad, and hatred, or even anger, has no purpose for my children, they shouldn't let it hinder their own emotional growth.

I pray that my son meant what he said yesterday, that he's 'gonna go straight,' that he'll be able to be law abiding.  He has some significant mental health diagnoses that aren't gonna help.

Another son released from prison awhile back has had a very tough go of it.  I can't help them.  I can't make employers hire them, nor landlords rent to them.  There are some natural, yet challenging, consequences to what they'd done.  Yes, they paid their debt to society, but there are still long lasting, and supremely frustrating, aftereffects.

"I can't fix this," I've had to say too often over the phone. I just recite a litany of suggestions regarding their next steps. I'm afraid one of them is paralyzed by his own indecision.

They wouldn't listen to me at all back then, now they want me to fix it and I simply can't do so.  It's not humanly possible. They are adults, there are natural consequences to everything. I can only emotionally support them but if they return to a life of crime, even my emotional distance will have to expand further.

I say they didn't listen, yet I've had most of my grown children later tell me that they hear my words in their minds over and over again, like a built-in nagging tape recorder.  I suppose that's a good thing, right?