Even As I Plant, I Grow

Spring is my busiest time. Even as many of the school year’s activities are counting down my brain is awash with new ideas. After a long winter I’m ready to burst out of my house, tear off my sweaters and kick off my boots in favor of sunny skies, short sleeve tops and flats with no socks. Even if my body is not busy, my brain is. Spinning, whirling with new ideas. Motivations and desires that lay dead and dormant over the winter suddenly come to life.

It is my planning time. When the thaw and new growth around me remind me of the amazing promise of new life and new beginnings. I planted my first tree yesterday as my husband rolled his eyes. I know my track record with gardens and plants isn’t the best, but it is something I so want to be good at. I’m making my planting lists and diagrams while looking ahead to the summer and fall semester of my children’s schooling. I dream of new curriculum and books, hoping that maybe this time they’ll fall in love with learning.

I want so desperately to feel secure and settled and yet I thrive on this kind of busy. The sense of accomplishment that comes from projects and tasks accomplished rather than the repetitive monotony of dishes, meals and laundry. I learned long ago that the work will never be finished.  And yet, those words were declared over two thousand years ago.

It is finished.

That human striving will someday cease and that even as we fail we can feel the confidence of knowing that there is the promise of something better ahead; though we don’t fully understand its form or appearance.  This is a mystery too great for me and yet I need to find a way to grasp at it, even as the knowing slips though my fingers.