Weeds

On Saturday I finally followed through with wanting to volunteer in the community. hopefully now that I’ve opened the door, I’ll continue participating in projects. But anyway, I volunteered with edible schoolyard, which is a garden project attached to a school where the kids come out and learn about gardening and cooking. They actually have classes during the school day as well as things at night to get their parents involved.

I signed up to weed parts of the garden with a friend of mine. we were pulling up this one type of weed that was pervasive throughout the garden that had these pretty little white flowers attached to it. My friend commented that she didn’t really want to pull up the weeds because they were so pretty and asked the guy who was directing us if he didn’t think those weeds added anything to the garden and if we could leave them there since they were so pretty. hH replied that while they were pretty they pull nutrients out of the soil without putting anything back in; they deplete the soil and make it harder for other plants to grow. He also said they choke out other plants from living, so we had to get rid of them.

In a moment of clarity (or corniness, you can decide), I realized how often certain people in our lives act like these pretty weeds: you’re so distracted by how attractive the flower is, you don’t realize (often until it’s too late) that this person keeps taking from you without ever giving anything back; that he or she is choking the life out of you; keeping you from growing and seeing the sunlight. Even though we might think to cut those weeds out of our lives, they’ll always come back unless you have the strength to pull them out by the roots that have penetrated down deep into the soil around you. The really crazy part is once one weed pops up (once you invite one weed to thrive in your life) they proliferate so quickly that, before you realize it, you’re surrounded—competing for nourishment, air, sunlight; for life!

I have some serious weeding to do…