24-06-23-rains-and-weeds

June 23, 2024 Journal No Comments

Between Rains And Weeds

Sunday, June 23, 2024

[Disclaimer; Only 5 days since the last daily installment. That’s an improvement. I have not yet read the story you are about to read. I cannot be sure, but I believe it deals with overcoming big problems by tackling little ones one at a time. Maybe one of the biggest problems to overcome is self-deception.]

Preface: The Urgency Of Waiting

Someone said there is no such thing as writer’s block. If you just start writing, something will come out. This and the previous two sentences are evidence of the “no writer’s block theory,” but it is not proof. Proof will come from what happens in the next few seconds.

Barely a second has elapsed since I wrote the last sentence, and here I am already writing another sentence. It contains no substance, but like the theory says, I just started writing and something came out.

So what does the title of the preface mean?

Let’s think about this. Have you ever been in dire straits? I mean like dire, dire straits? I mean like when every aspect of your life is spiralling downward at tornado speed? Your finances, your physical health, your relationships, your job, everything is in a whirlwind and it feels like all you can do is grab at bits and pieces as they all whirl around you?

You would think that anyone in such dire straits would have an urgency to act, not to wait. Well, think of a forest fire. You are trying to put out the fire in a few patches of land. You start by extinguishing flames in Area A. Then you move to Area B. Just before you move to Area C, you see flames in Area A again. Then Area B again. And you figure you might as well put out the fire in Area C since you are there already, and you discover you are out of water. With fires closing in, you don’t have the time to make a new survey and come up with a new strategy. And you also have no other option but to come up with a new plan.

Have you ever been in dire straits like that?

Let me tell you about it. When I came back from Israel and became engulfed in misery, I would stare at my life and fret about what it had become, and what it was becoming. With finances dwindling, my physical health going downhill, relationships in ruin, and falling behind in all the things I needed to do to justify my existence, I felt like the fireman trying to put out fires in Areas A,B,C, and D all at the same time, with no water. When nothing I did improved my situation, all I felt like doing was waiting. Waiting for something outside of me to change so I could change with it.

The Weeds and the Rains

Weeds grow. That’s a fact. After a month away from home, an overgrowth of weeds around the house amply reminded me of that fact. After a few days of meandering around the house with no clue as to where to start to get things in order, the weeds did not go away. They got bigger.

You see weeds have a purpose in life, especially at times when you don’t. Weeds grow and multiply so they take over your garden to where you forgot you had a flower growing in it.

Another fact of life in Aguadilla this past month is that it has rained almost every day. Sometimes the rain is introduced by mighty jolts of lightening with thunder that sounds like it’s cracking the whole sky in two. But usually it’s a short dose of pouring rain or light rain in the afternoon. The rain begins and fifteen to thirty minutes later you can see the clouds moving on out to sea. That is if you take the time to go outside.

A week or so after I returned, when it became obvious the weeds would not regulate themselves, I took a machete and a gardening tool and went to the side of the house where the water softener is. Growth from the neighbors’ side of the fence was tearing down a bamboo fence I had put up. I don’t know what my reasoning was for starting there. I don’t know if there was any reasoning. I had to start somewhere.

It took about an hour to chop down the overhanging branches and pull up the weeds creeping along the pavement. I called it a day, and went back to staring at the computer screen.

A day or two later, I had a sudden inspiration to really get things done. I took a hoe and a shovel and a gardener’s tool and churned up half the garden along the other neighbors’ fence. I called it a day, went inside, and turned on the ol’ laptop.

A Couple Days Later.

One day I was determined to work hard outside in the morning immediately after I finished going through emails and social media. When the rains came around midday, I set aside my plans for doing yardwork and proceded to pretend I was making progress by staring at the computer. However, when 5:00 PM rolled up, I boldly stood up, took the weed whacker and the reel mower, and mowed the lawn in the front yard. Actually only half the lawn. It was enough to call it a day.

The next couple days I enjoyed it when the rain came. It would cool down the air, and I could take a rain shower for free. However, these brief moments of rollicking in nature came at a cost. Two days after mowing half the front lawn, the grass was high again. Just as high as the grass on the other side that hadn’t been cut.

Moreover, weeds had grown back over on the side of the house, and more weeds were springing up where I had churned up the soil in the garden.

It was then that I realized I was living in the middle of a metaphor.

Weeds will grow. That’s a fact of life. And rain has no favorites. That’s another fact of life. You think the rain is your friend, and then you find out that rain is best friends with weeds, too.

I thought of the fireman in the preface trying to put out four fires at once, while the winds kept fueling the fires he thought he put out. At my house, the rains were feeding the weeds, and I had not worked diligently enough to keep the weeds away from flowers.

In my mind metaphorical weeds were taking over. And I knew: The only way to defeat the weeds is to cut them down to the ground and uproot them once and for all.

Well, it’s been five days since the last post. Maybe the next post will come sooner. All I know is, it won’t come at all before I create it. It won’t see the proverbial light of day until I clear away the mental obstacles that block me from seeing the story. Like the weeds that block me from seeing the flowers, I have got to just get to work, digging and hoeing, and uprooting weeds little by little, with consistence. With consistence, so the weeds don’t grow back.