hickory handles

Today I touched hickory handles and realized that most of them were too large for my hand. I was in the hardware store, a misplaced event with a bent parking lot and missing paint marks.

Allie asked me, as we were heading away from iced coffees and toward paperwork, if I’d take her there to have keys made. Of course I would. I adore hardware stores, driving, and errands, so it was a winning idea all around.

On the front sidewalk were, left to right: a haphazard arrangement of potting soil on a wooden pallet, a small metal rack showcasing an assortment of sunscorched pink and white petals, and a small tower of tomato cages. The front door provided a break from the disarray, and through it we found two very helpful employees. Ray directed us to Billy, who would be making the keys.

The squeal of the shredding keys drove me deeper into the hardware store, past caulk finishers and red 6-pack coolers, drill bits and what seemed to be endless bundles of garden fencing.

I stopped in the lawn and garden section, partly because it is farthest from the front, but mostly because I love new shovels. I enjoy looking at the speckled paint finish and the new red and white labels, everything crisp and fresh. I love the clean weight of a spade in my hand, the cool of new metal against my fingertips. I feel the point of one and imagining holding it above unbroken earth, then plunging it in, being the first to leave a dirt deposit on the gleaming surface.

I touched bow saws and drain spades, new shovels and rakes, clippers that were half my height, and hummingbird feeders that looked dangerously dainty in their position. I walked through the aisle, up and down, imagining buying it all.

I could plant 10,000 gardens. I could have them in the front and in the back. Flowers there in the front. Vegetables in the back, herbs on the side. I could stay in this aisle for another 25 minutes and touch all the handles, breathing varnish and new cardboard, imagining my life with gardens.

I hear my name being called. It’s so abrupt and shrill, so very rude and unwelcome that it disturbs me more than the sound of the key-cutting. It reminds me that I’m still Amy on her extended lunch break, still Amy in the diagonally striped black skirt, still Amy who goes back to the office and sits in front of the computer for the rest of the day, deleting commas.

I took a longing glance at the little red spade I had first eyeballed. I thought of buying it as a symbol of things to come, of my commitment to my future vegetation. I lifted it and returned it to rest without ever taking it off the rack.

|