Gardening staves off gloom

It is something I went away from for a while. I went back to it today after experiencing perhaps reasonable (or perhaps unreasonable) stress because of some impending car repair costs. The plot was built over a sidewalk and the remnants of a community that used to commute to a torpedo factory. (When my friend said that to the students this summer, one of them looked at me and laughed. "Did you hear that? Only she would say something like that. A 'shanty town!' Like something out of a John Steinbeck novel!") Sometimes a line spoken by Leonard Bast from Howard's End comes to mind: "That's for rich people to make them feel good after their dinner." But it is oh, so defeated-sounding! And, if only the definition of "rich" were more expanded in some people's minds? Anyway. Some nice extras to going back included: being told that I have to come again next week to sample a pumpkin pie, feeling the wind blow and liking it, admiring sunlit rainbow chard ("it looks so happy! If a plant can look happy" the same student said), watching people run around the plot and feeling the impulse to increase athletic activity in my life, and receiving some free extra basil and tomatos. The garden will be put to bed and winterized soon!