Yes, I know Jurassic Park came out 27 years ago and most people from this generation may have heard of it, but have likely seen the newer, shittier iteration, Jurassic World. I love the work Chris Pratt has done on Parks & Rec, and definitely his portrayal of Starlord in the MCU universe. But there’s a special place in my heart for Steven Spielberg’s original interpretation of Michael Crichton’s book and I’m a HUGE Jeff Goldblum fan, hence the title. But movies aren’t the focus of today’s post. I mostly brought all this up so I could use Goldblum’s popular line from the movie as my title.
In fact, my flowers are the subject of conversation for today. At the start of August, I had written about how people are stepping outside their comfort zones and are undertaking a score of home projects, due to all the downtime everyone suddenly has as a result of COVID-19. My pet project was turning my backyard into something that didn’t look like the desert wasteland in Mad Max (another fantastic movie!) I wound up turning our barren dirt patch into a lush, green lawn and I planted a batch of flowers in a round, concrete planter that was there when we moved in.
During this last post about my backyard, I had written how excited I was about the full growth of greenage coming out of my planter, how I was starting to see a few flowers sprouting up and couldn’t wait to see how full everything would bloom. Then, a quick day-visit from my mother-in-law confirmed that most of the green in the planter was actually an invasive weed preventing the flowers from taking hold. I was pretty miffed at the time, especially since I was foolish enough to think it was all flowers. But my wife and I worked at removing as much of the weeds as we could in order to allow the flowers free reign.
I’ll admit that my recent focus has been on our home’s foundation and the repairs required, as well as their inherent cost. Now that the back lawn has taken proper hold and I have my garage cleared out as a dojo space, I’ve been largely ignoring the back yard. Until I noticed sometime last week that the planter seems to be in massive bloom, despite all the dead leaves floating around it. Even with the colder weather and autumn starting to set in, my flowers seem to keep on kicking.
I know, flowers aren’t really everyone’s thing and many are likely thinking, “What’s the big deal? So you planted some seeds and they sprouted…” Well, first of all, to those many, shut up! Second of all, there’s a distinctive pride to undertaking something you’ve never done before and have it be successful. Especially faced with the fact that I struggled with getting it started over the summer, but once I left it alone it bloomed quite nicely on its own. Hence, Jeff Goldblum’s line about how life finds a way.
It’s nice to have an outside hobby that can be done during the warmer season, and I’ll admit that planting flowers and tending to them is quite peaceful. And in case you don’t get the vibe behind my blog, trying to be at peace is kind of the point. One can’t help but feel joy at the sight of so much life blooming in one’s environment. With October in full swing, and snow likely to hit the ground within the next month, these flowers likely won’t survive for too very much longer. So I thought I would share them with all of you before they disappear. Granted, if they keep on blooming through the snow, I’ll be writing a different post about how I’ve grown “super flowers.” ☯
The Blogging Buddhist 