The Maintenance Onto a New Year

A new year suggests a new start for some. Then, there are those, like me, who would like to think it’s just continuous maintenance of weeding the garden. 

In your earlier years, you sow seeds. As the years go by, you hope to have gained wisdom on how to carefully cultivate to the eventuality of just maintaining to its finest.

Preservation of joy, peace, and good health for the heart, mind, body, and spirit while protecting the grounds of unnecessary or unwanted sprouts just continues once experience has seasoned. 

When you know which seeds have been planted, do you not, then, know which were yours to maintain?

As winds blow and birds fly over, there will always be the unpredictable to which you will have to decide what next to do.

I remember growing up and feeling somewhat this void each time change happened where I could see that perhaps the turn had not been the plan, but more of a last minute point of direction.

It was to be my communion. I had gone through the practice processions with others who would complete the same. Having missed kindergarten, I hadn’t known anyone else about my age.

(I still recall outwardly remaining calm, writing my full name as Mama told me right before class commenced, in which I spaced out my name completely from left to right, that first day, entering first grade.)

I had been handed down some black dress shoes, quite a bit bigger than my feet needed, but would suffice just fine to complete my communion procession. 

I recall putting on a white dress and those black shoes before waiting outside my home, as if nothing would become different of the plan to head to the event.

I’m not sure if I had heard the whispers before or after I decided to put on the dress, shoes, and then, step out of our home, but I can recall the quiet talks continued inside while I pranced around our front yard.

Murmurs between my parents arrived to my understanding that I would not be attending what I had rehearsed to complete. 

There was never a communion for me.

As Sara Jacobsen further put my mind into greater perspective much later in sixth grade, here, in America, to grasp, “You can’t miss what you never had.” 

Being lactose intolerant, she had been referring to chocolate. She was comfortingly right in her remark.

What I never had, I never missed.

Our imaginations of what something could have been could easily disrupt the truth of what may have instead become had reality played itself out.

Our thoughts have a way to tease us like a terrible nemesis, heavily pounding into our minds the grandeur we missed out on. 

Thus, there are those stuck in the “what could have been” instead of focusing on taking control of what is before us.

Thankfully, fantasizing what could have been was just never me to begin with. 

Precious time and energy should be used well. Should they not?

Time cannot be rebought and energy taken in can either be positive or negative. 

Positive energy out doesn’t guarantee positive energy taken back in. 

Negative energy, all of what we do not (or, should not) desire should be burned in calories or joules. Why, then, do we throw this ball of energy for others to catch?

To take accountability, why sit around at a ballpark (paying entrance fee?!), just to wait around with a mitt to catch negativity? 

Whose autograph is worthy to note its hit?

There are just some who have gained a lot more negative energy, and thus, have a lot more of it to give than positive. 

Even in moments of attempt to keep all positive, stick around, the negative oozes out.

The garden is full. Full of what is the pondering question. 

While it’s great at times to indulge in a good book or movie for the sake of common ground in discussion during or thereafter, the reality is, other than a moment in time we would hope to have dearly shared with a loved one, I have come to understand that companionship can serve ideally as just a testimony for presence in one’s recollection of the moment. If, to not take personal, to have you as merely present to recall.

This leads to the cultivation of what, in your garden, remains.

When cultivating, we envision the beauty of what we hope for. It is in our words and images we can convey.  

Surely, there are those who escape into created imagery.

Fictional readings- the beauty and power to escape into another world of make-believe. Such world is truly a wonder and undoubtedly such a great place to escape to amidst our limited world. 

And, yet, how do we merge imagination to reality?

While the mind basks in stimulating and invigorating words of fantasy, does not pure knowledge await to help improve what is within us and perhaps, around us? 

Can not fantasy disrupt or distract us from our realities?

I admitted to my students long ago, as their Language Arts teacher, while I enjoyed reading with them such books as the Breadwinner or Spirit Bear, I’m a non-fiction reader at heart. 

To my truest admittance, Mama’s romance novels never enticed me past the unreal front covers. 

(The love and devotion Papa and Mama exemplified before me never looked that of the covers!)

I turned to the dictionary following my attempt to read the King James Version of the Bible from the early age of understanding words because they were the only two other mature books I could find in our home.

I knew then, reality was always better than fantasy, no matter the pains of true existence- at least you could feel reality’s genuine truth and gain knowledge from their very, at times, harsh, but meaningful lessons.

While science-fiction novels and follow-up movies ring truth of our possibilities, I think a responsibility to be careful as to what can be controlled.

As a new year embarks, I laugh at myself to think same with others in my Zumba class recently attended. 

Our instructor noted that while the room may seem somewhat empty (less full than its normal arms length capacity) due to the holidays, come January, the gym will start to overfill again.

Those of us who understood “again” nodded in agreement. 

There are those who make a point to start a New Year’s resolution of losing weight or gaining mass, heavy and strong. Come the following months, the gym body population dwindles back to its norm.

There will always be the try. And then, the try and try again becomes cyclical. 

There are those who chase the goal until it is met. Once met, the chase is over. The only thing to do is mess it up all over again so that the chase renews.

The sobriety is this dry period that I observe people fear. It’s as if the novel is over and there are those who would like to have another series just to keep the episodes going.

What is it about chronicles of events where we sense despondency upon noting the climax to end?

Is there a moment where we find we reached a goal and yet, have no other?

Idealistically, we hope to find this pot of gold at the end of the rainbow we chased and even when everything is to suggest we arrived, it’s as if we are convinced we have yet to find the big pot of gold?

What if the pot of gold was within our possession all along? 

What if anything we add is just our choice to build upon what we already possess?

Do we not read to seek and thus, gain more knowledge upon what we (think to) already know?

Do we not desire to work on ourselves to leave a mark that should inspire others?

Are we ideally thinking such or realistically doing such?

My reality is that I never experienced kindergarten, had a communion, nor read a romance novel.

Ideally, the experiences would have probably been nice to add to my becoming.

Realistically, I missed nothing that did not exist other than any figment of my imagination I would have allowed to enter of what each could have been. 

While I hold wonderful, irreplaceable memories of high school, I have sat silently to listen to my colleagues who have confessed outwardly that high school years were the worst of their lives.

Ideally, we paint pretty pictures based off our figment of imaginations of what could have been. Yet, when facing the opportunity, the the outcomes can vastly differ. 

To remind me of the garden before me, I go back to Sara Jacobsen. 

She will never miss chocolate. 

Wherever Sara is in this world, I am quite sure she continues to embrace life as realistically as she once helped me to embrace.

Within you subsides your time and energy, along with your heart, mind, body, and spirit. 

Before you is the garden dependent of your care. 

May your upcoming year be just another year of pruning to your splendor.