[2020-09-07] Sowing the seeds of love
If yesterday I was the hare, today I am the tortoise. Or perhaps the contemplative tortoise. The physical energy of yesterday has been replaced with new aches. So I took it easy today—using my brain but allowing my body to rest.
Completing Where the Crawdads Sing reminded me of the power of books—both fiction and non-fiction—to touch and teach. In my late teens and early 20s, I read many books and journaled about what struck me in their pages. This practice shaped who I became as an individual, as a wife and mother, and as a leader.
Today, I pulled off my bookshelf a notebook full of quotes from books that I was reading more than 30 years ago. One quote jumped out at me from a book called Happiness Is an Inside Job by John Powell:
For those who have loved, old age is a harvest time. The seeds of love planted so carefully and so long ago have matured with time. The loving person is surrounded in the twilight of life with the presence and the caring of others.... What was given so freely and joyfully has been returned with interest.
Now, I don't think of myself as old and I truly hope that I'm not in the twilight of my life; however, the quote does sum up well where I find myself at this moment: reaping the rewards of years of sharing love. I'm not sure that I carefully planted the seeds of love so much as scattered them about with no expectation of a return, let alone a return with interest.
Still, that is exactly what has happened. Family members, friends, colleagues, employees and even strangers have reached out in ways I wouldn't have even imagined to show they care and to lift me up. For that, I will be forever grateful, and I will pay it forward.
My quibble with the quote is that it suggests that one sows the seeds of love in youth and reaps the harvest in old age. For me, the sowing and the reaping are continuous. We can plant seeds—intentionally or unintentionally—at any age. In fact, I think it becomes easier to do so as we mature, learn to love and accept ourselves, and perhaps have more time to show we care.
And showing we care doesn't need to take grand forms. It can be as simple as a phone call to say hi, an email to suggest a book or movie, an e-card to lift someone's spirits, a quick visit to drop off a pint of ice cream, or a gift ordered online and delivered directly to the person's home.
My intention with this blog is not simply to share my story, but also to inspire all of us—myself included—to be better, more loving people.
One final quote from my 30-year-old notebook, this one from May Sarton in Journal of a Solitude,
"Not everyone can or will do that—give his specific fears and desires a chance to be of universal significance." To do this takes a curious combination of humility, excruciating honesty, and (there's the rub) a sense of destiny or of identity. One must believe that private dilemmas are, if deeply examined, universal, and so, if expressed, have a human value beyond the private, and one must also believe in the vehicle for expressing them, in the talent.
That vehicle for me is blogging, which is like journaling but with the intention of sharing private dilemmas with others. Words, like any form of art, have a way of meaning different things to different people, according to their own private dilemmas at that moment. It is my hope that my perspective, which has been inevitably shaped by my health issue and by other people's response to it, will be of value to you.
