My husband gave me my Mother's Day gift early - a wheelbarrow. Last year I got three cubic meters of dirt. He knows me well. Other men might scramble to take their wives to brunch, buy pearls, send flowers. But after 25 years of marriage, he knows - the best gifts to give me are things for the garden and books. Better yet, books about gardening.

Someone called me a treehugger once and I was taken aback. Is that how I'm perceived? How could I be a treehugger? I work in a big-city corporate office and use words like Strategic Priorities and Measurables and Deliverables. I don't even like Granola.

But then I go out to my garden and plunge my hands into that rich dark loam and smell the dampness from last night's rain. I lie with my head in the patch of lime mint and inhale all that goodness and freshness, and yes, I feel I could hug the earth. It gives us everything we need. It loves us. We put in a seed and get a hundredfold back. Where else can you get that kind of return on your investment? I go out in my garden and I'm overwhelmed with abundance. And I begin to understand grace.