On a recent Sunday, after I’d completed my push-up challenge, counted my rolls of toilet paper and sketched out a new work-from-home schedule that I would eventually abandon by midday Monday, I looked online in search of something that my pandemic-addled mind had decided overnight was essential: seeds.

Crises can release memories, and as I entered my third week of social isolation, a half remembered fragment of “Candide” resurfaced from high school French class. I must, the voice demanded, cultivate my garden. And, as it happens, I have a weedy patch of backyard that I can turn, if not into an Eden, than at least something slightly less weedy and more nourishing.

Despite one disastrous deck garden (I blame questionable soil), I have a reasonable track record of messily coaxing food from the earth. I grew up with a backyard garden, spent a summer working on farms in Vermont and worked for three seasons in a botanical garden.

I knew firsthand how calming gardening can be, especially when you’re not dependent on the food for your immediate survival. Time slows down a little, thoughts meander, and a feeling of flow can arrive, even when the land you’re cultivating is a tiny patch in earshot of a bus stop.