Seeds

 Last night I ran to Target to get lettuce for Taco Tuesday. It wouldn't be the same if we didn't have tacos and I didn't want to disappoint Charlie. Charlie doesn't even live here right now, but for some reason, it is important to continue these traditions and be able to tell him that we had Tacos on Tuesday. 

Anyway, in Target there was a whole display of seed packets, brightly colored, shiny packets, with pictures of everything from Okra to peas to sunflowers to Sweet Williams. I stood there a moment holding my lettuce. The packets were nicely organized and so appealing. The sun in the pictures made the flowers glisten just so. It's hard to believe these little envelopes could

contain so much goodness inside. 

I know we've heard this analogy before - water that which you want to grow, and plant seeds of kindness, but for some reason last night it struck me differently. Sometimes it's messy. My garden right now is a mess. We removed the old tomato plants last fall but there are some creepy things growing in there that I'm not sure about. The kale is sticking up but not quite sure what it wants to do. The endives (yes, I don't know what I was thinking) are there but do not resemble anything that was on the picture of the seed packet. We forget that it's not just water that makes seeds grow, it's a yucky process. There's lots of mud and rainy days that go on for too long, making puddles. And sometimes the sun is too much and the zucchini blossoms wither and die before they had a chance to bloom. And there are weeds that threaten to take over. And we hunch over digging and plucking and forget to stretch our limbs and we become exhausted by the effort. 

Whatever seeds you are uncovering in your life, I hope you have some wonderful ones to plant. I also hope you don't get discouraged when the rain and the sun and the soil don't cooperate. I hope you nurture that within you that wants to blossom. I wish you a happy full garden of beautiful flowers.