I think you’ve caught it in time.

After three weekends away and too many late nights at work, I finally decided tonight was the night for watering the garden. It was starting to look extremely droopy, full of unhappy flowers and healthy weeds instead of the other way around. I’m uncertain how the weeds thrive while everything else suffocates in this heat. I guess the plants with the staying power—the ones that grow anywhere in any conditions—eventually win. I’m sure that’s a metaphor for something, but there’s no need to analyze it. That’s just how natural selection works, I guess.

The thing I find even more surprising, no, irritating, no, umm…I don’t know. The thing I notice every summer as if it’s a new phenomenon is how the plants I didn’t plant with my own two hands thrive. The hostas and ferns and creeping ivies come back bigger and better every year. There’s usually something new too, something hidden in the ground making a comeback or something dropping in from a neighbor’s garden.

Speaking of neighbors, my next door neighbor walked down our shared driveway as I was tugging on the hose.

“Isn’t it going to storm tonight?” She asked, while I wrestled with the tangled mess.

I shrugged and said, “It needs it. I neglect it [the garden] because I can’t stand dealing with this hose.”

“You should get one of those rolling things like we have,” she suggested with a nod toward her perfectly coiled water-delivery system.

As we continued chatting, my mind wandered a bit. I pondered why I didn’t get one of those rolling things or make more time for such a simple chore like watering. After all, I did spend nearly two whole weekends purchasing and planting all those flowers. The ones hanging from the trellis have died. The hydrangea is getting too much sun at the back of the house. And someone or something stole the only red tomato my plants have produced so far. The raspberries are great, but that’s because they grow like weeds. Red, ripe, juicy berries are popping up on seemingly lifeless branches. Every other day or so for two to three weeks, I’ve harvested small handfuls, enough to cover my morning granola. Nature is amazing.

So why don’t I put in the effort? For a totally stupid reason: because the hose is a situation. The spigot to turn on the water is at the opposite end of the house from where the water comes out—and in the basement. I have to go down into the basement, walk the length of the house, turn on the water, walk back to the other end of the house, up the stairs, and outside to the hose. Then I have to unravel the hose and drag it from the back of the house (where we have a few fruits and veggies) to the front of the house (where we have copious plants and flowers). Invariably, I then have to walk back along the length of hose and work out the kinks so the water will come out the spray nozzle. Rinse and repeat that last step until the entire garden is soaked.

This evening, my neighbor, Mrs. Green Thumb (not her real name), was strolling by as I stepped out onto the front sidewalk, balancing the hose under one arm and firing it like a canon at the cracked earth beneath my plants.

“Hello!” I greeted her cheerily.

“Oh, good,” she replied.

Her response did not match my greeting in the slightest, but I beamed back a warm smile that matched her own.

“We’ve been away,” I said, to excuse my obviously neglected plants while she stopped to appraise the situation.

“I think you’ve caught it in time,” she nodded her approval.

I nearly dropped the hose to throw my arms around her in gratitude. When it comes to matters of the earth and green, growing things, an endorsement from Mrs. Green Thumb is like a mandate from Mother Nature. I was proud and relieved by her words. I managed to restrain my joy as we chatted a moment longer. Then she walked on.

As I stood under an ever-darkening evening sky, I brooded about how much control I have over what grows. Most days (when I’m in an ever-darkening mood) it seems as though what wants to grow will grow, and what doesn’t won’t. My garden teases me. It gives me a false sense of authority. I can put things in and pull things out. But I can’t choose what will flourish and what will wilt during a week of 90+ degree heat. (That’s in Fahrenheit for any un-American readers.)

Standing in the hot dusk, the warm breeze pushed me around. The wind battered my skin blowing the thick, tight air closer. The cool spray from the hose provided some relief, but I focused the stream on the ground in an attempt not to waste the precious drops. As I concentrated the water and my attention on green leaves, my mind turned to my adventures in Africa. It has been Africa-hot here this week. Zimbabwe in early summer hot.

In Zimbabwe in early summer, Mother Nature performs an awe-inspiring and delightful trick. Barren, lifeless-looking trees sprout delicate, barely-visible spring buds in preparation for the approaching rainy season. Now you’re wondering, What’s so great about that? That’s what happens in spring, right? If creating something out of nothing doesn’t strike you as that amazing, ponder what happens next.

Gaya sends a rain storm, one short rain. The water disappears into hard-packed clay seemingly lost forever. But indeed, that one rain rallies the trees and shrubs to defy months of drought. Dry branches shrug off the dusts of winter. Leaves open. Trees turn green. That one brief rain primes the soil in preparation for rains that are yet to come. The leaves open, against all odds, to catch waters that are two weeks away yet. That one short rain forces the change in season. It gives the African bush the courage to grow and renew itself year after year. A rain storm that quick wouldn’t even register on the radar of a resident of Seattle, London, or Boston. But that storm forces the leaves to open so they can catch the coming storms. Two hot, humid weeks later, the heavens will open and the rains will start in earnest. Life will defeat death this year as it did last year. How the leaves and trees remember that while they sleep through dry and dusty winters may be just another example of natural selection. But it’s a wonderful, beautiful mystery to me.

As the evening light retreated, I pictured viridian Acacia leaves towering above rusty grasses surrounded by pure azure sky. I took my time finishing the watering. And when I was done, I coiled the hose neatly. Just as I finished, the sound of thunder rolled in on the breeze.