Growth

When I first moved out of home, I grew things.

I had looked after a wonderful hen and chicken fern for many years. He lived on my desk, and I looked after it, talked to it, watched it unfurl, watched it grow...and it still lives in my mum's backyard, in an ever-growing pot.

I loved the surprise of a new shoot, a new curled frond, like a gift for me, like a shy baby arriving into my world. I would coax it, encourage it, praise its every graceful extension into the world. And then, about once a year, new babies would grow right out of its leaves. Little chickens, which would become new plants. I loved its green honesty. Sitting there, still, and yet so very active and powerful.

So when I moved out of home, I grew things. I grew vegetables in a rocky backyard that seemed like it would never be good enough for any vegie. We had chickens that fertilised and scratched the soil for us, and then beetroots, tomatoes, and corn sprang out of the ground. Every day, the new shoots on the plants, or a single radish grown out of a seed was something to be proud of, a creation.

My ferns multiplied, and I soon had a collection of my lovely shade plants.

But later, the ferns started to die. The busyness of life, the rushing around of study, the neglect that those babies were experiencing started to take its toll.
We moved, moved them to a better place. A new garden was started, new vegetables grown, and this happened another two times.

After a few years, I got sick of growing things, the rewards shrank. I seemed to be killing plants around me. I had the kids to worry about and growing them was taking all of my energy. The same rewards that I had once gained from green growth was now so much more palpable to me, in a very different way.

I haven't grown any plants for about 8 years. I couldn't be bothered. Too many gardens started and no fruit to show for them. Too many disappointments thrown into the earth without any result, or any sorries. No seeds germinated from tears. Too many memories entangled in my ferns' simple fronds. New Zealand, many rented homes, my gardening friend who never rang back.
I think we plant things because of the outcome, our expectations of what the earth will give back if we put some effort into it. We put work into life because we know that the fruits that we will harvest are worthwhile.

I have started growing things again. I am holding my breath and asking the earth to deliver. I am trusting things to the ground, putting my roots into the ground again. I am ready to accept that some of these plants that I am trusting to the earth will die, bear no fruit, be forgotten.
That peach tree in the corner, the one I have not watered since I moved into this house, is suddenly important. I want it to survive, I will care for it and give it another chance to have its season. I think I might be ready yet again to take a leap, take a chance, risk the death of a few seedlings, sacrifice my time and my effort for an outcome.

I am glad I haven't lost that hope. That youthful hope that things can only get better, that you are the owner of your destiny and that you have got to try. Extend those limbs into the sky and grow, bloom...and yes, probably one day die.

I think I will ask for my fern back. I am glad I had someone to look after it until I was ready to welcome it back in.

Carpe Diem

1/3/2011


We are often told to count our blessings. We teach our children to count our blessings, we are reminded by pop culture to be grateful. How many of us actually are grateful and make a point to be just a little bit grateful?
I have learnt to be.
It is often when we are faced by some dilemma or other that we suddenly realise that we need to count our blessings, daily, every moment, every breath.
I have tried to live my adult life this way, being grateful, enjoy every moment, seize the day.
Every day I give people news, a lot of the time it is bad news; and as much as this is a cliché, it is not until one stares death straight in the face that we actually remember to breathe just a little bit deeper the next day.
My father died young, and for a few years after that, I used to panic for my children's safety, for my own safety, for my mum's health. Not a day went by that I would think about my own mortality, and after a while, I had to let it go. Because awareness does not necessarily equate acceptance. One can live in panic and the resulting emotions are not pleasant.
In the last few months, I have met someone who lost a child of nine, cared for a young cancer patient myself, witnessed two of my long term patients' passing, heard of a parent of the school's demise in a car accident, heard of flood victims, cyclone victims and earthquake victims. Never mind the people who die daily and whose news are simply buried with the thousands of other souls whose time has arrived.
Because of the almost daily news, we certainly do grow somewhat resistant to the news.
My cat brings me dead mice, pigeons. Often I find them only when they smell. I know, it is disgusting, but it also means that I can recognise the smell of death. A walk in the playground with the kids can be interrupted by the unmistakeable aroma of death; a reminder.

When I think about death, about my own mortality, faced by it, my only thought is life.

It is the most unusual thing. I think about those I love and live for, I think about the mark I make day to day on those I work with, socialise with. I think about what I have written and hope that I have more time left to live so I can fill more pages with my thoughts.
I think about my kids, and my cats, and my sisters, and my beautiful niece and nephews. My lovely friends who share my life. I think about all the progress that I have made in my life, about my psyche and how proud of it I am these days. I think about how healthy I feel when I run at the gym, and how much laughter I manage to fit in to a boring day at work.
I think about how many people I know who appreciate me, and the difference that I manage to make in my own little corner of the world.

So, I think about life, how much I love life, and how worthwhile the journey is.
I think I am grateful.
Be grateful, live every day, make it all worth it. I think it is.