Of life

I am going to tell you about a garden. Please picture in your mind what I try to relate.

It’s a large garden, planted mainly with flowers. There are a few trees, mostly ornamental yard-sized trees, nothing huge and towering. A well worn path meanders through the flower beds, almost like a maze. But unlike a maze the purpose of this path is to lead you to discovery, introducing new avenues to explore if you wish. You gaze at your surroundings. To the left, to the right, and up ahead you see a plethora of flora. What? Flowers mostly. Some on tall stalks swaying in the gentle breeze, waving their colors. Some in clumps and mounds, close to the ground, reaching out to tickle your toes with tendrils of green, or multicolored petals like brushes dipped in paint.

Choosing a path, you set out slowly, walking gently as you seek the rhythm of the place. Colors explode in your field of vision at every twist in the trail. The scent of fresh earth forms a base against which the unique smell of each plant reveals itself in concert with its neighbor. This is nice! The sunshine runs around the shadows of clouds above and the leaves of the taller plants. The light entices you to increase your pace.

And oh, the colors! You see lots of green, a lot of greens. Reds fade to pale pink on this stalk, but burst like fire over there. Did you know there were this many shades of yellow? Where does yellow become orange? It doesn’t matter, because it’s all so beautiful. There are dark colors on leaves and blooms, funny shades of gray and burgundy you didn’t expect to see on a plant. Blues and purples peep through buds, or splay large and lustily.

Some you like, some you don’t. “Well,” you think to yourself, “I suppose someone likes that strange looking thing, but I wouldn’t plant it in my garden.” Along the winding way you are distracted by a foul odor. That clump of decay is disgusting! Moving right along, you choose a path that looks and smells more promising.

Mostly it is a good place. You like it here. “I could spend a long time discovering the secrets of this place,” you think to yourself. There is enough variety to keep you interested and entertained.

As in all of life, there are detractors. Let’s call them weeds. What is a weed? I have heard it said that there are sixty definitions. For me, a weed is a plant out of place. ~Donald Culross Peattie. Possibly, but some of this stuff is obviously weed. The weeds seem almost as varied as the desirable elements.

Let’s look metaphorically at weeds. Let’s say for the sake of this discussion that among the many weeds here is one type of weed that is particularly deceptive. It looks quite beautiful. It grows rapidly and the breeze readily disperses the small seeds in a wide swath. However, we discover that the weed has an adverse effect on the plants beside it. It’s time to remove this weed.

The weed first entered this garden a while ago, so it has gotten into lots of places. Some of the specimens have grown large, and very close to some valuable flowers.

Removing weeds can be a tricky proposition. They should come out without uprooting other plants. The smaller stalks of this weed come up easily, and where the roots intertwine there isn’t a lot of shared space. The adjacent plants lose some ground, some nutrients, a bit of their foothold on the earth, but recovery is rapid.

In places where this weed has grown tall and strong the neighboring plants are deeply affected. As the weed is yanked from the ground it takes with it a sizeable chunk of dirt. In some instances the flower has spread its roots almost intimately within the roots of the weed. Sometimes the flowers lean on the weed for support, or a vine uses the seemingly stable stalk as a trellis. The valuable plant is left vulnerable, threatened, feeling deeply the loss of what should have been a strong companion.

I suppose some of the smaller, younger flowers will suffer much, depending on how close they were to the weed. This may affect their growth significantly. More mature plants will also suffer, of course depending on how much they relied on or were affected by the weed. The strong ones will quickly regain their stability, the additional access to air and sunlight compensating for the losses.

Tonight it will rain. At times soft and gentle, occasionally with bursts more forceful. Wind will whip the leaves against each other, moving the rain in and away from our garden. The water levels out the holes left by our weeding. The rich rains nourish the ground from which our plants absorb nutrients. The dust, the dirt, the detritus fallen on the flowers will wash away.

There will be tears of rain on some of the plants when the sun lights our garden in the morning. As the light and warmth increase, our tears will dry, our leaves stretch out, our buds will blossom. And life goes on.