It hit me this weekend that my heuristic model of adulthood was all wrong. I almost rememebr "kid-me" sitting there thinking about adulthood as the state where knowledge had been attained in sufficient quantity and quality to enable one to function as a self-directed being. Childhood, by contrast and the so-called "young adulthood" too were the period when a human goes out and acquires the knowledge that will serve them later.

It never ocurred to me then that learning was something that keeps on going.

It hit me this weekend when I was doing some planning for my vegetable garden. Gardening, like plumbing, and house repairs, was something I assumed that adults knew how to do, and children did not. So I was feeling like a "coming to it late" sort of fella since I am most decidely an adult, and I am also not nearly competent as a gardener. It felt almost like a secret I had to hide. Sort of like,

"I'm not really a gardener, but I'm trying to fake it."

So I started thinking,

"When do most people learn to garden?"

Most people get exposed to weeding and watering at an age where time and seasons are unrelated and totally inchoate. At 12 or 14 years old, the only seasons are summer vacation, school, thanksgiving break, christmas break and summer vacation again. So it is unlikely that a 12 year old would sit with dad or grandma and learn about the timing of planting pole beans vs bush beans, or that an early spring in climate Zone 6 is just a teaser; tomatoes never go in before May 1st. Corn either.

It wouldn't have beee learned in the late teens, when dilgence and patience and listenging to adults are virutes that are in short supply. I'm not sure that I actually learned anything in my teens. In hindsight it seems more like I was growing a brain and learning to use it, while carefully avoiding filling it with anything.

Early 20s..? When we were in college dorms, rental apartments? Not likely. I think I was a disaster to the whole phylum at that point.

Maybe late 20s? When we are dating seriously, getting married, starting families, working to get establishd in a carreer. Maybe for some.

So here I sit, in my early 30s. I learn a lot every day in spite of myself, and I appreciate that learning is a lifelong task. So maybe I'm coming to gardening at the perfect age. When I have finally mustered enough foresight to plan a garden, still have enough energy to build one, and have almost cultivated enough patience to tend one.