The Great Dirt Disconnect

By Audrey Cress

Along St. Augustine’s Cordova Street, the scent of Schmagel’s Bagels behind me and a coffee shop ahead were interrupted by a familiar aroma from freshly planted landscaping – the smell of dirt.

Just like the strong smell of SPF 50 brings me back to long hot days at an amusement park, that earthy smell flooded my mind with childhood memories of mud fights with my sisters in our backyard and memories of working in a garden bed with my mom. It made me realize how long it’d been since I’d found dirt under my fingernails or in the callouses of my palms. 

While my mind was supposed to be on the next article for the student newspaper and the deadline for print at the magazine I work for, that smell made all the static go quiet. I was desperate for more of it. 

I don’t think the landscapers would have welcomed a passerby picking up a shovel and joining in their careful planting of shrubs and spreading of mulch. So, I instantly started plotting how I could shove all my essential homework for the weekend into a Friday. I was going to dedicate my weekend to being in the dirt.

After a stop at Home Depot on Saturday morning for the $2.74 flowers and some plant food, I was giddy and excited to spend time outside. Fall semester of my senior year hasn’t been an easy one, and after a summer spent almost exclusively at the beach, I was really feeling the disconnect. 

My laptop, phone and TV tucked away inside, I felt safe from the temptation of doing what I knew was responsible but would not have been healthy.

The above-ground garden bed my husband had built in the spring was home to broccoli, cucumber, green bean and lettuce sprouts. While still alive, they were neglected and hadn’t grown past 3 inches tall. 

With my hands in what felt like warm, earthy snow, I dug up and threw out the roots of a dead parsley plant. After a jump scare from a frog living happily in the pot I was uprooting, I laughed out loud at myself. I was outside, by myself, carefully making room for the pink and white flowers that would soon be at home. 

I briefly entertained the idea of playing music through my Bluetooth speaker, but remembered I would have to pick up my phone to turn it on. I realized if dirt is good for anything, it’s a repellent to the electronics that have been frying my eyes, causing twitching eye lids and lack of sleep.

Instead of playing a song, I started to hum whatever melody that popped into my head. A song deep in the archives of my mind started to play, one my mom used to sing to my sisters and me as we fell asleep. Thankfully I was alone, because anyone would have been driven crazy by the hum of the few seconds of the melody I was repeating.

There is nothing more satisfying than seeing the dirt wash away from my hands and feet when I finally came inside to wash up before eating dinner. The visual felt more like washing away the worry, the weight that had been on my mind to do everything at once. The pressure to do it all well, if not perfectly.

As I closed my eyes to fall asleep that night, I could feel the muscles in the back of my legs and my shoulders groan from a day on my feet, kneeling in the grass. I didn’t have the familiar pulsing, burning sensation under my eyelids. Sleep came to me easier than it had in weeks. 

This kind of rest left my body sore, but my mind at ease. 

Turns out I’m not the only one who finds reconnecting with the earth therapeutic and calming. It’s a connection that a lot of people feel they’ve lost. In fact, studies – including from the National Institute of Health – have found so much success in treating mental illness and stress with gardening and being in green spaces that they have given it a name – Horticulture Therapy.

It works.

I was able to wake up in the morning with a newfound energy. I tackled the week with a fresh perspective. I had found where I was disconnected and healed it with a messy, sweaty day outside.

Walking into my publisher’s office, I had to give him what might be the stupidest excuse he has ever heard. I would have to tell him it was because I smelled dirt.