If I were in a form of solitary confinement, say -- with enough food and water, a garden to tend, and small roomful of books that I could read -- would that be enough? Could I find a purpose in my life that would justify my being?
I would continue, reading, writing, eating as was necessary and working the garden, knowing without me the plants would wither and die, and likewise, I would wither and die without them. I would talk to the plants. (They say that’s good and that plants need the carbon dioxide). I would talk and they would listen (or so it would seem). I would see them grow, produce fruit or flowers and appreciate the progress. I would pick the product, and then come fall, I would till the plants under, throw them in a compost pile, and try not to think of it as sad. I would instead look forward to the next growing season, the coming of spring. I would ponder new techniques, new methods of planting with the hope of better results. During the winter, I would focus on what is to come, and not what was -- as a means to cope with their loss. I would not consider their lives a sacrifice. Tending the lives of others -- is that the value of me, or anyone?
I would read my books, finding solace in the human experience as experienced by those who wrote the books. I would not know whether the writer had experienced the stories first hand or had simply imagined the events – either way, it wouldn’t matter to me. It would be as real as my mind allowed it to be. I would feel emotions that related to my own that I could share with no one, because no one was there. I would find a friend, a companion, a lover within the pages of the books, and they would hold me through the night, as I dreamt of places I could not imagine while awake.
I would grow old, remembering, if I could, particularly beautiful sunsets, and days of horehound frost that allowed me to pretend that I was beautiful and living in a magical world in which my mere thoughts could transport me beyond my confines. I would look up at the sound of honking, Canadian geese flying overhead. At dawn, I would wake to the sound of the first returning birds of spring. I would look at my garden, the wholeness of it, the near perfection of it, the beauty of the rows, and the order of it, the greenness and the blooms on the plants that I grew for no reason except that they gave me pleasure to look at them. Eventually, I would die, and somehow, I too, would be tilled underground and maybe appreciated for that time I served.
My books would age and grow yellow. The pages would flutter away in the wind and the words would dissolve in the rain and snow. All my lovers, companions and friends dissolving into the earth along with me, around me, and with my beloved flowers, tomatoes and the pesky weeds, too.
