Pee on a stick. Place down on the side of the bath. Peek. Two lines. Face down. No, that can’t be right. Turn over. Check again. It is.
Panic.
Get ready for the day.
I wrestled my foot into my welly, did the awkward jump to steady myself between the kitchen door and the fridge and shoved my other into the second boot. Outside, I stamped my legs on the mat to coax off the dry mud, and made for the greenhouse.
Two lines. Ok. You're Ok.
I turned the terracotta pot back over so it stood upright. I hadn’t wanted any spiders to make a home in it overnight in case I didn't notice them and got trapped under a soil silo. The tray of soil sat, fluffed up and waiting for a seed to hold,
a womb.
I took a buttery handful of brown and tucked it into the pot, unseen. I positioned my hand so the lines of my palm deepened into two bold crevices; I wondered which was the lifeline, and which was wealth. With two taps on the corner of the brown envelope, I poured the fine sandgrain seeds into the grooves, filling them with small black beads of potential that jittered under my breath. I didn’t label the envelope- I knew they belonged to some type of Brassica, perhaps Broccoli. I didn't mind what they were, I just wanted something to grow alongside.
Early morning is the best time to garden; the roads are still, the most movement in the form of the birds flitting between the trees and the feeder. The crocuses were beginning to push their way up from the grass, determined heads crowning, saying I’m almost here, I’m ready, purple bodies screaming their way into the world. I sprinkled a few seeds onto the soil and tucked them into their beds. Grow well, I whispered and set them aside.
A few seeds remained and so, I reached out for another pot at the end of my workbench, this time a plastic one I had been saving- the last of a stack of them.
I lifted it and my wrist buckled slightly under the unexpected weight. As I pulled it closer to my face, I squealed. A tiny little fieldmouse, curled tight in uninterrupted sleep, soft beige fur lifting gently as it breathed. The side of the pot closest the window had worn a small round hole, and this little mouse had moved in. A tiny crescent, no larger than my hand, nestled in the safety of the curve.
Outside, the sun was casting light onto the grass, the flowers stretching out to reach its rays. Inside, a changing, a stirring, a growth. I thought about the tiny life, curled up in the pot and the one unfolding inside of me.
No need to panic.
Little did this mouse know, it settled my nerves into a million excitements, and the seeds became a thousand possibilities- the best nature memory of all.
