Dirt and Sweat

    I am clearly in a funk, and not sure how to get out of it.  I don't write much when I'm happy, I'm not trying to get dialogue out of my head when I am happy.  When I am pissy I pour things out hoping to make room for the happy to come back.  I wish I ran.  I always think that if I liked to run I could go for a long run and clear my head.  Alas, I hate running.  I wish I was a shopper, I could go loose myself in a store and zone out but that's not me either.  If I were a guy I would go out and pick fights, punch out my frustration.
     I need dirt and sweat. I need to work myself hard enough to tire myself out.  I don't know if I found the gym or the gym found me, but it is as holy as any cathedral in my mind.  I can push and grunt and move weight til I feel better.  My favorite movie quote is from Legally Blond  "Exercise gives you endorphins. Endorphins make you happy. Happy people don't shoot their husbands, they just don't."   Elle Woods was on to something.  I work out to be a better mother and wife. I have a lot of mean in me.  I need to exercise my demons, its the only way they let me sleep.  Right now my steady work out just isn't enough.  I need dirt under my nails, an aching back, and sweat, lots and lots of sweat. 
    I raked leaves for four hours today.  I bagged twenty-two bags of leaves today, and it felt good.  I need to quiet my head, shut down all that is driving me mad.   My life feels out of control, no I don't know when I'm moving, no I don't know where I'm moving or if my husband will move with us.  This lack of control really sets me off.  So if I run out of leaves at my house, I may show up in your yard.  What I wouldn't give for a downed tree and an axe.
      Some of my happiest and most comforting memories are full of dirt and sweat.  I am six or seven years old walking barefoot down just plowed  rows of our garden.  I follow behind my Dad, he pokes planting holes in the top of the rows and I count out three seeds and drop them in then cover them with dirt.  It's hot and smells like fresh earth, and all is at peace in my life.  I am a fourteen year old girl and I work for my Dad surveying.  I have my own machete, I know how to sharpen it and what angle to swing it to cut a line through Louisiana thickets and briar patches.  We leave at day light and work til dusk.  It smells like tree bark, sweat, and hot musty air trapped in thick woods.  Saturdays are my favorite day of the week because I get to work and spend the day with my dad.  At the end of every work day I appreciate money and baths more than I ever thought I could, and all is at peace in my world.  I am a sixteen year old and I am at church during the summer, I am cutting the shrubs and hedges from around the church, raking and hauling off limbs.  Standing outside of the church knowing that its beauty, for most, is held on the inside where light streams through stained glass. But what I need most is the outside, the work, the feeling of sun burnt shoulders and a tiredness earned through hard work, and all is at peace in my world.
     Today I tackled my front yard, maybe tomorrow I will start on the back yard.  Maybe I'll sleep good tonight.  Maybe between the gym this morning, and the time spent cleaning out yet another closet, all added to the wondrous work of raking leaves maybe it's all enough to tire me out. 
     Thanks Dad for always letting me work with you, thank you for never treating me like a girl, thank you for letting me try to keep up with you.  Thank you for teaching me the value of dirt and sweat.  Sometimes the only way I can handle myself isn't by talking, it's by shutting out the world and working, thank you for showing me how.