After blue dye spilled through my fallopian tubes, and I reclaimed my pain-shot breath, I walked the neighborhood. It was a hot spring. Ants were building the chambers of their mounds. The upper chamber designed to keep the brood and queen cool when heat thickens in sifted calm. Silent ants scrambled within the mystery of storm. That afternoon, a different silence and undeterred coming and going, their linear climb a diagramed purpose. Your tubes look clear, my doctor confirmed. There are no more fertility tests left to do. As a child I kicked excavated soil with the edge of my sneaker back into the ant mound. I used to call soil dirt. Dirt is different than soil: nothing grows in dirt; it has no history. When organic matter or rock—parent material—deposits, then ages, soil forms. When it washes away, it becomes a pile of dirt. Ants turn and aerate it, water reaches plant roots, and the soil building process begins again. Soils lie where earth, air, water, and life meet. My body, body.
Fischer, Nan. “The Difference Between Soil and Dirt.” Naturespath.com. Better Planet, July 10, 2018.