Day 270 Relationships

September 5, 2015

(If we live with an open and grateful attitude, every day will bring a gift. This is one of 365 gifts during the year I turned 70.)

It is about six feet tall and looms over a pot of smaller colorful flowers. For the past week, I have observed what I thought were buds at the top of this plant. This morning, the only thing that “bloomed” were seeds, so I guess the “buds” are “seedpods.” Some fluffy white dandelion-like seeds exploded this morning and began an airborne journey to ensure it will be around next year at this time. It seems the purpose of this plant is not colorful beauty but simply propagation. 

Why do I water nameless weeds that grow in my flowerpots? Why do I not delete names and contact information of the deceased from my Outlook directory? The answer to the first is curiosity; the answer to the second is a desire to hold on to a memory that lives in a real-time listing. I do not fool myself. I knew the plant was a weed that could overtake my yard. I know that my father and mother-in-law are no longer with us and their existence in my contacts will not bring them back. 

I wish I knew the name of the tall weed with delicate floating seeds, but would it change anything? Only in the sense that it would create a relationship if I knew what to call it. I know the names of the deceased still listed in my contacts. I had a relationship with them. Perhaps I leave their names because we still have a relationship—planted in my memory.

My gift today is delicate seeds flying away.

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> Day 271: Synchronicity

You can find links to my other posts on this project here:

http://bjschupp.blogspot.com/2014/12/365-gifts.html

Day 237 Patterns

August 3, 2015

(If we live with an open and grateful attitude, every day will bring a gift. This is one of 365 gifts during the year I turned 70.)

Each day brings a gift but sometimes we don’t recognize it because it is like a piece of clay that is waiting for us to shape it.

I have a six-foot weed growing in a pot on the porch. Why? Perhaps it is because every day I look forward to seeing how much taller it has grown. It is probably at its maximum height now because there are tiny flowers at the top. The flowers were unremarkable until I began to notice its texture when I looked at the top against a blue sky. Then I began to imagine a pattern.

I took a photo of just the top of this unknown weed and created a kaleidoscopic image. As I examined the resulting design, I noticed how the blue sky’s white cloud veil acted as rays coming from this plant. I could see small plant parts escaping from the main pattern and then a tiny sprig in the upper right that did not fit into the pattern at all—almost as if it were escaping, as if it had a life that refused to fit into a pattern. Perhaps a little like me.

The more I looked at it, the more I saw how it connected with other things—this extraordinary image that I created from the ordinary. This summer weed had transformed into something that resembled a winter snowflake and I began to wonder—what patterns in my life have connections to other lives, and other times in my life?

My gift today is a weed that I transformed.

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> Day 238 Reflection
             
You can find links to my other posts on this project here:

http://bjschupp.blogspot.com/2014/12/365-gifts.html