Yesterday was an exciting day for Baby Man.  First, we took his second ever subway ride over to Bloor West Village so I could pick up some DMC.  (Yeah, after all of that shopping on Friday, I was still short a couple of DMC colours. )  quanta and I used to live in that area, so I know the shopping area well.  It was a quick trip, because in my haste to catch the bus I forgot Baby Man’s juice and a few other baby necessities.

After his nap, I introduced Baby Man to the wonderful world of gardening.  Well, what we actually did was plant some pansies and petunias in the planter on the balcony where my juniper grows.  And when I say “we” I mean “me”, while Baby Man watched, tried to eat handfuls of dirt, and banged his little plastic shovel on the ground.  I think he’s already eaten his prophesied peck of dirt.

The planter on the balcony is my little piece of greenery.  There is a park in front of our building, but I feel like it is too groomed and too tamed to be nature. Children play there and neighbours walk their dogs, there is no wildness.  Now, I don’t think my little planter is real wildness either, with its pansies and petunias neatly planted side by side.  But because it is planted by my hand and because I water it, deadhead the flowers, and allow them to grow as they please, I feel like it is more free.  It is my mini-sanctuary.  It is practise for the garden I will have someday when we move into a house.

So, this sort of gets me thinking about what Nature, with a captial N, means to me.  I’m a very fair person with bad Spring and Summer allergies.  I don’t really like to be outside all that much because I burn and sneeze.  And yet I love trees and flowers.  I love green grass and hearing the leaves of the trees blowing in the breeze.  Downtown Toronto drives me nuts because there aren’t enough trees, and I find this neighbourhood a little lacking too.  It is like if I don’t have green outside my window then I feel like part of me is off-balance.  It is really strange, but I’m also kind of comforted too.  I mean, isn’t it right that we are all attached to nature in some way since we are part of it?