On February 18th 2025, I experienced my first bought of suicidal ideation in over a year. The next day, I started working on The Experiment.
It started in the morning, a little bit before 11 AM, sipping on a coffee with a freshly bandaged thumb, which I had sliced the evening prior making dinner for my partner. I had cut the tip of my right thumb, and in a small faltering moment, like a trapeze artist missing the queue, I thought about harming myself, a specific trigger which hasn't entered my mind in quite sometime. I was frightened, especially as I focused on the blade in my hand and the blood on the cutting board. Freezing up, I put the knife down and retired to my bed for the evening, sending a text to my fellow roommates about the mess I left, and that I (or as it turned out, my beautiful partner) would clean it up when i got the chance.
February 19th, 2025, 11:32 AM: I began.
By begin, I mean I smoked a bowl and opened the first bag of soil. I had a compost bin that I had started when me and my friends had moved in, back in June, but it hadn't gotten much use. I mixed the compost, soil, and a small bag of peat moss together with the dirt that was originally there. Luckily (a word you are going to notice a lot in this project), it had rained a few days prior, so the dirt was bad, but not as bad as it could've been. Under the dry, compacted dust, there was a soft inner center, like the garden was a large nougat, just waiting for me to bite. 
After I had all the soil down, I planted grass seeds basically everywhere. In my mind, I simply needed to banish the sight of the dirt as fast as humanly possible. I needed to be rid of anything I hated, and I hated the dead and dying backyard as I knew it up until that point. Once the ground was tilled to oblivion, I began moving large rocks out of the dirt and arranging the layout of the garden; carving out space for a stone pathway, adding a few chairs to the back for a prime smokespot, pruning the 8 foot tall tree tobacco (I am a jackass who didn’t research invasive plants prior to this experience), placing an ornamental tire, and cleaning up the hummingbird feeder that a roommate had put up. I paused to make food, realizing I had been working for almost the whole day now, and I had to eat. I made toast.
As the sun hung low in the sky, I planted some small things, and tucked in for the day.
That is about as direct as I will be about this garden. I have a tumultuous and ever-growing (haha) relationship with it, it is my muse and my undertaker, my bright, flaming passion, and my sexless droning idle activity. It bears fruit, it gives shade. I've felt and touched this ground, sunk my fingers in it and pulled out its entails, replaced them with something more. Every event that happens in this garden holds a deeper value to me. I am trampled and sad, I am blooming and ready. I’ve struggled creatively with how to capture this garden. I know that I am a college student, with little financial wiggle room. I know that this garden can only serve me for maybe 1 more year. The biennials will shrivel. The ground will become hard. The juncos and doves will stop visiting. What will remain when I no longer need you? 
To memorialize this garden, I’ve decided to dedicate this page to it, we’ll call it a time-based performance. I’m going to compile my thoughts on this garden for the next year or so, and create an archive for my ever-changing environment. The Lot is for everyone. Embrace the mess. Kiss and touch it. Watch the change happen before you and LET IT!
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