It goes without saying that true joy comes from doing things with your family. Whether one is with his wife, sons, grand-daughters, daughters-in-law or all of the above, these are the happiest times in mortality.
Still, as I get older I find solitude enjoyable also.
This doesn't mean that I love my family less. Au contraire, my love for each member of my family grows each day.
These musings are the results of a thought, actually more of a remembrance, I had today.
As I was working alone in my yard, I thought of my two favorite solitary activities. That is, the two things I most enjoy doing when I am alone. I learned them from my parents: my favorite solitary activity from my favorite parent and my second-favorite solitary activity from my second-favorite parent.
From my mother, I learned to love reading. What more pleasant occupation could ever fill one's time alone than reading? To process the words of a billboard – to ingest the wisdom on the back of a box of Cheerios – to while away hours with a good book, engulfed in a far away war or the life of a hero – to delicately peruse the scriptures as the Holy Spirit whispers to you heart – can man attain a higher joy while in mortality? I think not!
Even before I started school, my mother taught me to read. I remember watching her read to me, and yearning to take that book and read it to myself. During our afternoons together, when all my brothers and sisters were in school, my mother, who barely finished 8th grade, instilled in her youngest a tool and a joy that have never dimmed. I love to read. Indeed, I have often said that if a man can read, he is half educated already.
From my father, I learned to love gardening. This may sound strange to anyone who knew me in the late-1950s. I hated the labor I spent next to my dad hoeing, planting, weeding and picking in the two great gardens he kept each year.
In retrospect, I see that he had little choice but to garden hardy. With a wife and five children at home (my eldest brother was by then eating Air Force chow), it was necessary to grow all that he could. He must have loved it, too, because it is the only activity I ever recall in which my father instructed me diligently in the do's and don'ts.
It was many years later, the late 1980s, when I realized how much I loved gardening. I find it a source of great happiness to prepare the soil and plant, whether anything actually grows or not. Of course, when I can eat the fruits of my labor it is even better, but that is not a requirement for me to enjoy gardening.
Words cannot tell nor can tongue express the sweet happiness that fills my being when I am digging, tilling, pruning, or picking! I love the smell of good, clean clay and I love being awash in well-earned sweat! I even enjoy standing in my garden, in late December, just visualizing the weeds of July overtaking my okra and crooked-neck squash. To garden is to do angels' work.
Today I planted my pea patch (snow peas), mulched and fertilized my trees, cleaned around my lilacs, burned all the trimmings from my winter's prunings, and even climbed under the house to reset the clock on our water filter (that was Risë's idea).
That's some fun stuff, I don't care who you are!
The Boys and Me
