[2021-04-10] Weeds
Today's unseasonably warm weather and my husband's construction of a potting table had me dreaming of gardening. I spent most of the day in my backyard, enjoying the shade and the breeze, a pleasant retreat from the dry, spring warmth. As I looked around the deck, I imagined my various planters filled with vegetables and herbs.
I remembered this excerpt from Ashly Perez's book Read This for Inspiration:
Have you ever seen a garden without weeds? No. None of us intends to grow weeds when we plant our gardens. But inevitably they appear. However, flowers don't stop blooming because weeds appear. Bees don't stop pollinating. Plants don't stop exchanging carbon for oxygen.
We don't cease to be a garden because one day we find ourselves surrounded by weeds. Simply pick out your weeds and keep growing strong.
Of course, this passage is about more than flowers and weeds in our gardens. It is about the good and the bad that come with simply being alive. As much as I'd like to experience only health, I can't escape illness and risks to my well-being—ovarian cancer, gene changes that increase my chance of developing other cancers, the wait for a COVID vaccine.
It would be so easy to focus on the weeds—the things that aren't going well. But I prefer Perez's view: flowers don't stop blooming, bees don't stop pollinating, and plants don't stop living because weeds appear. I won't cease living even though I'm facing some thorny issues. I will deal with each weed as it comes, removing the ones I can and learning to live with the ones I can't. And I will keep growing strong.
