If You Can Relate

The botanical garden that I work at received a sizable delivery of mushroom compost from Tampa this week. Despite what people may assume about a 250-acre nature sanctuary, we don’t seem to ever have enough dirt.

A hydraulic dump truck bustled into the sparsely wooded area where the garden keeps miscellaneous piles of natural materials. I watched in amazement as the driver unloaded many tons of rich, dark soil with the flick of a switch on his dashboard using the power of hydraulic pressure. It was 10am on a dewey morning and my day was just getting started. I was happy to pause and watch this process, I was there anyway to unload some hay bales. When the operator was done dumping, I left to retrieve more bales.

When I returned to the area I found the truck still there and our horticulture manager digging in front of one of the tires. I curiously rode over to him and discovered that the lack of rain over the past week had turned the dirt road into dusty, dry sandpit that wasn’t allowing the enormous truck tires get any traction–the truck was now stuck.

I offered some hay from my cart to use for traction under the tires but had to get back to work and wished them luck.

I went about my morning but kept thinking of the truck. As the day progressed I wondered what had done the trick to get it out of that rut. At 4pm I bumped into another staff member and inquired about how the truck eventually got out.

“Oh, it’s still there”, Rodney said. “And the bottom of the truck is practically resting on the dirt, with how deep he dug in those tires”

I looked at Rodney with a shocked-emoji-face, mentally sent the driver some sympathy, and could deeply feel the frustration of being in a rut without the traction to get out.

My comfortable life lately feels like that driver in his semi-truck running his wheels in the same spot in the sand. It puts the wheels into a deep well after a while. People close to me have asked me what I am doing here, in this town and doing this work. I have assured them that I want to stay here for a while to provide a period of comfort for myself. Just a place to turn my wheels and exist.

However, just turning the wheels can suck if it’s in sand.

If you can relate, please let me know. If you cannot, let me know that, too.

The truck did eventually get out that day, at around 5pm. The word was that the driver’s boss had to drive the 1.5 hours from Tampa with a tow truck to get it done. Poor guy put in a solid 7-hour day at the Gardens and didn’t even get put on our payroll for it.