Since a lot of people are stuck at home until the world returns to normal, many have chosen to undertake some DIY projects within the home. I, myself, have decided that the patch of bare dirt in our backyard deserved to get some love and I started working the soil. Much to my surprise, the past few summers of weeding and spraying made the soil pretty easy to till and plant some grass seed.
I managed to make myself proud as a full half of our backyard now contains a full, lush green lawn that requires mowing twice as often as the front yard. The other half contains a quarter space where we plan on planting our own vegetables and a quarter space that I had left for Nathan to dig with. I have since seeded the digging quarter as Nathan has given up his mining ambitions in favour of his razor scooter. but I digress…
Our back yard has a circle of grey bricks that had apparently been arranged to ring a tree that had been in the backyard. When we moved in, the tree was cut down at its base and nothing remained but a slim stump. So I decided to till the soil within the ring and plant some flower seeds. I felt that the back yard could use a little color. Within a few weeks, the entire ring grew some greenage that was over half my height! I was tickled pink (not literally) and like an unaware idiot, kept watering daily and trying to get everything to grow as much as possible.
Turns out that the tall, green stalks I was watering and so proud of, were invasive weeds that were preventing the actual flowers from fully blooming. I have to admit that I had no clue and I thought the thick stalks were a species of flower that would bloom fully. Once we found out, my wife and I took an afternoon to remove as much of the weed as we could in an effort to let the flowers take hold.
Flowers are starting to take over and some are already in full bloom. But as usual, it got me to thinking about perspective. Until I was told the tall stalks were weeds, I was happily and cluelessly watering the weeds like they were worth their weight in gold. Once I knew they were weeds, I got angry and became hell-bent on removing them from my garden. But I would have been oblivious, otherwise.
And this is something that applies to life, as a general rule. Something that may be unpleasant to one person could easily be a benefit to another. Sometimes, things may seem like they don’t belong but even things that are not preferred can be important to someone else. Dandelions are considered weeds, but it sure doesn’t stop my son from loving the yellow ones and blowing the fluff off the white ones. It’s all about one’s perspective. ☯
The Blogging Buddhist 