My Wild Weeds

Maybe since I'm not a farmer I've always had a spot in my heart for weeds.
That commercial where they squirt a couple of dandelions in the crack of the driveway with some pesticide (and they wither away like the Wicked Witch of the West) always makes me sad. When I lived in New York City weeds through sidewalk cracks got my empathetic encouragement: "You can do it, young fella! Conquer that cement!" As a bird watcher I studied field guides to weeds just to know what the black-capped chickadee or the red-winged blackbird ate for a snack. One creature's banquet is another's menace.
Now that I have a spot of dirt to plant a tomato or two I'm out there everyday pulling up that crab grass and insistent ivy that the previous owner planted. No dandelions tho. Lots of other unknown weeds that I often mistake for "real" plants.
So wrestling with weeds is not entirely foreign to me. In fact, I've had my own personal weed garden to tangle with each day of my life.
That's my hair. Curly, unruly, will not toe the line, or smooth out, or listen to me. (I used to straighten it in my teens but that short-lived battle won could not win the war.) I gave in years ago. I have a wild weed garden on my head. And no amount goop, spray, pleading, begging, psychokinesis, or heavy hats will tame it.
You might say I wallow in weeds. I even like the word.
Before agriculture weeds lived free. And so did a lot of other earthly delights.

Be There Now

Were you hanging out in the late 60's? The sentiment "Be Here Now" captured imaginations. It meant: don't be worrying your head about all the things that are not here now -- just pay attention to the moment you are in. The moment you are in quickly becomes the past, and you can't be in the future moment...so be HERE now. Feel your life in its moments. Be with it.

Seems most of us have fallen completely into Be There Now. All of our devices (like electronic balls and chains) drag us away from here to there and over there and over there. It's the quintessential embodiment of "the grass is greener...over there."

Imagine if we tossed those little devices away, freed up our hands and heads and imaginations, kept our friends in the dark as to exactly what's on our minds every minute, and all managed to Be Here Now.

Try it on for size. Makes the air tingle a little. Gets you reacquinted with the quiet in your head. Lets you do a howdy-do to your soul whose been hanging around, drumming its fingers, waiting for you to Be Here Now.

One Hand Washes the Other

The other night, while teaching a cooking class, I cut my finger. An annoying thing to do especially when you're the one who's supposed to know what you're doing.

Luckily, one of my regular students is a nurse pratictioner and she bandaged me up perfectly. She told me: "Don't Get It Wet!" and "Don't Take the Bandage Off For Three Days!!"

In those three days I understood what one hand washes the other really is. You can't wash your hand with just one hand. You can't dry your hand with just one hand. You need them both.

During that same time President Obama was trying to wash hands with the other side of the aisle (the side way over to the right way over about a million miles from the Capitol building) and he couldn't.

You can't wash hands with just one hand.

And so. Everything is rather dirty.