Do Something Small for Large Results

I planted these today.  I have been stuck in a shadow place since I have been back.  I am very sad about my mother.  She is stable right now and the urinary tract infection is gone.  The whole process of saying goodbye was very difficult. 

My Mom in the hospital

I miss her and wish I could see her everyday, every weekend, every other weekend, just see her.  This sadness has stumped my creativity. 

 

I also am trying to adjust to life back on the East Coast.  I feel people are much more closed off on the East Coast. I miss friendly smiles and sunsets I can always drive just a couple of minutes to see a complete view of the majestic sky exploding colors and contrasts. 

56 West -- Open Heart Open Skies -- Photo by memomuse

Here in Eastern North Carolina, I often drive in circles trying to find an open field to see the sunset. I am trying to embrace “Bloom Where You Are Planted.”  Whenever I go back home (Wyoming and Colorado) – I yearn for the landscape, as if it is phantom pain in my heart.  Throbbing, beating, asking for open spaces to open my heart. 

 So I did something small today and it provoked some creativity and a desire to work on some of my creative projects.  I am currently working on refining a book proposal for The Original Journal and developing a line of memomuse greeting cards.  I have released my first card and it is available at The Flower Pot, located at 111 Barnes Street  in downtown Wilson, NC and also at My Cutie Patootie, also downtown Wilson, NC. I had been soaking these plants you see in the picture above in water for several weeks, perhaps straggling on a month or more. 

 

I had every intention to replant them as the roots had come in, but I did not have the motivation.  Something so small seemed so very large.  Laundry piled up, dusty balls of dog fur piled up and my motivation still lay flat on the floor.  But today, I made myself pot those plants.  As I sniped off dead leaves, I snarled at what a free time geek I am that this is actually what I am doing, instead of writing chapters for my novel, designing more cards, etc. etc.  Just your basic new to the stay at home mom self-inflicted guilt game.  As if I should be more productive than simply taking care of a home and a one year old.  I am still adjusting to not working full-time outside the home.  After my son was born, I had a four month maternity leave because of summer vacation.  I then went back to work (4th grade teacher) and worked from August to December.  I resigned my job effective the last day before Christmas vacation.  

 

But something shifted once those plants found some soil for their stringy, reaching for earth, roots.  They got themselves a happy home now on my kitchen windowsill.  To remind me that something simple can evoke something large.  So now I have a new batch , waitin’ for roots to emerge, waiting for soil to cling and surround their energy and ability to grow. Plants growing bouyant roots, buoyant water gives them life and time to emerge tendrils.  This is something I am embracing — giving myself time to grow roots in North Carolina.  Even though I am not under the big blanket of sky out West. 

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It is forever West in my heart.  Just a tiny step manifested into something bigger, more beautiful than the sadness that is staining my bleeding heart. 

My mom is the beautiful redhead on the right with the glasses

My mother taught me about gardening. 

A garden was everywhere I turned - this is our backyard. That's me with my foot out on the right.

My dad in our patio garden - Do you see the spider plants hanging?

My father did, as well, but she says, “He started gardening because I did.”  Whatever it may be – both my parents taught me the beauty and bounty of a garden full, inside and outside.  I remember there was always a hanging plant inside the house, in fact, there were always dozens of them, basking in the light from the front living room open air window panes, three by three by three, rectangular in their geometric beauty.  Spider plants always danced in the morning sun.  Flowers were always abundant in our outside front yard and backyard gardens. 

 

There is magic in gardens.  In putting a tiny seed into the great Mother Earth and watching it grow, slowly, then electrically, it seems to dance in a breeze and then blooms giant colors so vibrant and curved. 

 

So, I encourage you to do something small, with the intention it will ignite something large.  It could be a great big song in your heart you sing to your child that starts with just a tiny little hum.  Or perhaps you plant some tiny seeds in a patch of garden and come mid summer you eat the ripe fruit or smell the fresh flower.  Giant hope starts with the same tiny hands of hope.  You are beautiful, small or large. 

memomuse being a writer poet (my inner child still sits on this bridge to think)

Just be.