Growth Rings

So, so much has happened.

Human beings, at least emotionally, spiritually, and metaphysically, don't grow like trees at all. The process is not slow, a yearly gain of age, season & reason. We grow like, well, ourselves: small, incoherent & awkward at intervals, then, when intermittently the universe allows it & makes its lessons known, throw us into the great pool of life all at once, find our voices & feet under us. It's a wonder there aren't more drownings, metaphorically speaking, yet somehow there are not.

We go on growing like the calves of antelope, tottering to our feet as quickly as we can. Perhaps we can run fleetly before we know how to nurse. Over & over, we flee, chew greenery we can't digest. We are skilled at crouching down so our spots blend with the shrubs. We teeth. We bolt.

I'd started, recently to feel as though I were trapped, too young to fend for myself somehow, too gawky & inexperienced to make progress-at least, that's how I felt I was acting. And now, things around me are propelling me forward. I'm shooting up again, gaining inches & perspective & chance.

Here it goes again, then, for me!

I've just been thrown headfirst & only marginally refraining from kicking & screaming into the most providential, humbling work of my life.

1,800 greater Seattle area volunteers. 45 local schools. 25 active habitat restoration sites. Our director has a 3-year plan to triple these numbers & to triple our organization's range, staff, donations & impact. 3 major watersheds: the Stillaguamish, Snohomish & Island County jurisdictions.

We are bringing wild salmon back to each. Teaching kids about the importance of watershed restoration. Raising money for tree-plantings, stream remeanders, & pollution reduction.

On the periphery-no, that's not true; very much at the forefront, also-I've managed to swallow my pride long enough & well enough to retain a very, very important relationship. How strident I've been. How loud, hyperbolic, desperate, melodramatic. Yet rather than wonder why he bothers to but up with it, I've decided that I know: never once have I purported to be anything but who & what I am.

It's taken some time, frustration & many false starts, but I've decided to deal with this relationship, as I do all others, from a place of deep love & respect, & so over the next few months, will relay all this to him via email (since the written word is, of course, my stronger suit...).

After weeks of churning wheels, anger, heightened negativity, now this-a breakthrough? A new start? A clean slate? One hopes.

Above all & ever, I hope.

Because, really, it's the other stuff that confounds us, isn't it? The times we feel stymied, ineffectual or lost. We all know what's underneath it, where we began, why. It's only the detritus of everyday life that buries it, when we're wearied by unanswered questions, by bad news, foul weather, lack of time.

It really is such an easy thing, once that's all stripped away, & we find ourselves refocused on who we are, why we are, what we're here to do. Life nourishes us when we're not expecting it, not looking, & then we realise that in paring down to that one essential, we've managed to grow.

Growth through minimalism. Through continuing to breathe, even underwater, as it were.

What an easy, natural thing it can be: to love. Such a simple, simple thing.