At the nearby annual spring sale of native flora of the Northwest (Connecticut) Conservation District, I noticed that the master gardeners running the sale looked as if they were thriving as much as the hundreds of lustrous perennials. The greenery was verdant and gorgeous, the offerings were incredibly tempting, but I stuck to my list with only a few lapses.

The white-haired woman who helped me was a gardener of few words but deep feeling. I got the distinct impression that most of her hours were spent wordlessly in the presents of plants because her face had the kind of beatific expression I have only seen in paintings of saints.

It made me remember that human beings are possessed of an innate "biophilia," a need for being in the world of nature that, if unfulfilled, can lead to a sense of sorrow, an inexplicable unhappiness often blamed on something else, writes Robert Pogue Harrison in his fascinating book, Gardens: An Essay on the Human Condition.

On difficult writing or news days, all I have to do is get myself out the door and into my world of greenery behind the house and begin pulling, clipping, and watering. In minutes I feel better, buoyant and in balance again, and ready to return to working with words in the other world.