Dry Cracked Earth

I am a beginning of the season gardener.  Every Spring I head to the nursery full of enthusiasm and not much actual knowledge about flowers.  I just want them to look pretty in front of my house.  I spend the day pulling weeds, raking, planting and mulching.  The finished product looks amazing and I make a solemn vow to water and care for my new plants.  And I do.  For a while.

This year, I have been particularly neglectful to my flower beds.  After the first few weeks, I stopped watering all together.  For a while, it was hard to tell.  The flowers still bloomed and looked full and healthy.  As time went by, I began to notice a few weeds popping up here and there.  I decided they weren't all that bad and let them go. 

This morning, I was out front saying good bye to my kids as they were picked up for car pool and I looked at the flower beds on my way back in.  They really looked bad.  There are big, prickly weeds taking over the bed.  When did they get so tall?  The flowers are droopy and no longer producing good blooms.  When was the last time I pruned them?  The ground was full of deep cracks.  When was the last time it rained? 

I have been the dry, cracked earth.  I have often ignored the care that is required to live a vibrant, colorful, joyful life.  The deep crevices in my flower bed were such a strong visual for me today.    Sometimes our lives can resemble a neglected garden.  I know mine has. Very slowly and without warning, bad habits can begin to take root.   If we aren't paying attention, they grow out of control and need to be drastically taken care of.  Just like flowers need pruning, we too need to be evaluating our lives on a regular basis.  If not, new growth can not take place.  The most important often missed necessity is water.  We must be involved in activities and practices that water our souls, fill us up and make us blossom into the best version of ourselves we can be. 

I know my flowers aren't going to rebound with one watering.  Similarly, when we notice an area of lack or neglect in our lives, there is often not a quick fix.  Sometimes we have to prune and weed and put in some really hard work to revive our dry, cracked souls into vibrant living. But take heart, it can be done.  Choose one thing, start there and eventually, hopefully your garden (and mine) will flourish. 

Accidental Beauty

We love our backyard.  It is such a place of peace for our family.  At any given time, you might find one or more of the six of us laying on the hammock, sitting by the fire pit, enjoying the serenity of the deck in the evening or swinging on the play set.  It is our place.  Nestled against a deep tree line with plenty of perfect fort locations and a creek, we are secluded, for the most part, from our neighbors and their yards. 

One thing we love about our yard is all the birds we have visit our feeders.  We have seen bright red cardinals, blue jays, nuthatches and a few we haven't yet identified.  By far, our favorites are the hummingbirds.  My neighbors will tell you that I stole all the hummingbirds from them.  For some reason, they just love our yard.  There are so many, you might get dive bombed by a couple tiny but aggressive females.

This summer, we got a pleasant surprise under our bird feeder.  After several weeks of refilling the seed, we began to see what we thought were weeds growing among the day lilies.  Being the not gardener that I am, I let them go.  One day, we were greeted by a sweet sunflower.  The seeds had been dropped by the birds and took root in our unkept patch of landscaping. 

It was accidental beauty.  Beauty that we didn't try to cultivate or force.  I am learning to appreciate these moments of accidental beauty more and more.  It is the small moments that make up our lives.  An older brother holding the hand of the youngest, suits and towels lined up on the porch rail after a fun day at the pool, spontaneous "thank yous" and "I'm sorries".  The things we take for granted and the things we don't notice are the very things in our lives that can make all the difference.

Take a deep breath, look around and open your eyes up to the moments in your life.  If you can, snap a picture of it or write it down in a journal.  Then, on the days when you wonder if it all is worth it, be reminded of those small moments of unforced, simple, accidental beauty.