Be Like the Weeds

*Apologies for any blatant errors or formatting issues. I wrote this on mobile.

We just moved into a new house about a month ago and are fortunate enough to have a decent size farm space out back. We're growing all sorts of exciting plants: potatoes, sweet potatoes, spinach, Swiss chard, daikon radishes, tomatoes, green peppers, and yellow and red ones, too. I also have soy beans seeds in starter pots and am crossing my fingers that they will sprout and grow enough to be successfully transplanted into one of the last remaining empty rows. 

It's been a hell of a lot of fun, though I'm very much a beginner and will accept the failures as they come.

Since I know that my first few years of growing will have their ups and downs and be chock full of learning experiences, I'm using the time in the dirt and under the resplendent sun to think about the things that are important to me -- hobbies, family, philosophy, running, creativity. In short, the quietude of the dirt under the sky draws me inward and reminds me that the world is ever changing. The subtly changing green landscape teaches me the same.

Just yesterday, to drive this point home, we had a torrential downpour. The sound of the droplets pelting the roof like aquatic assassins put me into one of the deepest sleeps I've had in a long time. Today, then, when I returned home from work, I checked on my plants. I wanted to make sure that my newfound friends were OK. Fortunately, they weathered the storm. Unfortunately, though I don't mind all that much, a gang of new weeds sprouted up to a height that I would have deemed impossible had I not just weeded the day before prior to the big deluge.

The weeds got me thinking today. They got me thinking about persistence and possibility. I pull this one emerald and spindly variety out of the ground consistently, and it simply refuses to lose. Its roots dig deep and hold on tight, so nine out of ten attempts to remove it, the moment I think that I've just about got it, it snaps with an almost joyful pop, as if to say, "Ha! Nice try but fat chance!"

Then the damned thing rears its ugly head the very next day asking for another go. It's like a free game of Whack a Mole, I tell you. But before I get angry at the weed, I get hit with mystical jolt of wisdom. The weed, if it could talk, wouldn't be taunting me at all. Instead, it would be encouraging me to live my life like it does, to never give up, to reach for the sun, that original source of life, God, no matter if its circumstances aren't ideal, no matter if a force beyond its control keeps on chopping it down.

Be like the weeds.