276 Marbles
One generation plants the trees; another gets the shade.
Keep a green tree in your heart, and perhaps a singing bird will come.
Chinese Proverb
I had to drop the kids off at Ex-man’s house today (the house that had been my home for six of the years we were together). When I entered his yard, I passed under the trellis filled with the budding blooms of the wisteria I had planted there seven years ago. It took everything I had to keep the tears back until I got home where I had a bout of Wysteria Hysteria.
When we lived in that house, I planted all my favourite flowering trees and vines: lilac, mock orange, rhododendron, jasmine, and wisteria. I fell in love with wisteria in Greece where I would walk by a fragrant courtyard laden with the purple blossoms. I knew that one day I’d plant a wisteria pathway to my own home. Years later at Ex-man’s house I planted the vine and waited each Spring for the blooms to show. Year after year, nothing. This year it’s a blossom extravaganza. Is my lesson to be more discerning in choosing which soil to till?
The word hysteria is derived from “hustera” which means womb in Greek so perhaps I’m physiologically entitled to have my sad and angry wisteria hysteria. I’m sad about all the things that I planted and had to leave. I’m mad that the wisteria is not at my home, like I envisioned in Greece (it was supposed to be me that was smelling the sweet scented air from the trellis). I’m upset that even if I do plant more where I’m living now, it will take years for it to bloom and maybe I won’t even be living here then, and once again, someone else will be enjoying the seeds that I planted. (Yes there is a comfort in knowing that, as the proverb notes, I may have done the planting but my kids are benefitting from the beauty of the garden at their dad’s house.)
I’d like a house of my own but even if I had one, change is a given and I may move from it. So I’ll keep planting wherever I be. What I do know is that whether or not it’s my nose that will benefit from the fragrance, the world will be slightly more aromatic because I continue to plant my seeds.
Stephan Girard once wrote, “If I thought I was going to die tomorrow, I should nevertheless plant a tree today.” Yet none of this is really just about seeds and flowers. Living with an open heart means continually planting seeds and as life takes its inevitable twists and turns, I never really know which buds I’ll be around to see bloom.
Can I let go of all of the seeds that I planted in my relationship with Ex-man (except my kids, of course)? Could I create a life where I am the sower of the seeds and the reaper of the fragrant harvest?
One generation plants the trees; another gets the shade.
Keep a green tree in your heart, and perhaps a singing bird will come.
Chinese Proverb
I had to drop the kids off at Ex-man’s house today (the house that had been my home for six of the years we were together). When I entered his yard, I passed under the trellis filled with the budding blooms of the wisteria I had planted there seven years ago. It took everything I had to keep the tears back until I got home where I had a bout of Wysteria Hysteria.
When we lived in that house, I planted all my favourite flowering trees and vines: lilac, mock orange, rhododendron, jasmine, and wisteria. I fell in love with wisteria in Greece where I would walk by a fragrant courtyard laden with the purple blossoms. I knew that one day I’d plant a wisteria pathway to my own home. Years later at Ex-man’s house I planted the vine and waited each Spring for the blooms to show. Year after year, nothing. This year it’s a blossom extravaganza. Is my lesson to be more discerning in choosing which soil to till?
The word hysteria is derived from “hustera” which means womb in Greek so perhaps I’m physiologically entitled to have my sad and angry wisteria hysteria. I’m sad about all the things that I planted and had to leave. I’m mad that the wisteria is not at my home, like I envisioned in Greece (it was supposed to be me that was smelling the sweet scented air from the trellis). I’m upset that even if I do plant more where I’m living now, it will take years for it to bloom and maybe I won’t even be living here then, and once again, someone else will be enjoying the seeds that I planted. (Yes there is a comfort in knowing that, as the proverb notes, I may have done the planting but my kids are benefitting from the beauty of the garden at their dad’s house.)
I’d like a house of my own but even if I had one, change is a given and I may move from it. So I’ll keep planting wherever I be. What I do know is that whether or not it’s my nose that will benefit from the fragrance, the world will be slightly more aromatic because I continue to plant my seeds.
Stephan Girard once wrote, “If I thought I was going to die tomorrow, I should nevertheless plant a tree today.” Yet none of this is really just about seeds and flowers. Living with an open heart means continually planting seeds and as life takes its inevitable twists and turns, I never really know which buds I’ll be around to see bloom.
Can I let go of all of the seeds that I planted in my relationship with Ex-man (except my kids, of course)? Could I create a life where I am the sower of the seeds and the reaper of the fragrant harvest?
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