The following post was written by a beautiful, kind, giving, inspiring woman, Shelley Massey. Thank you, Shelley, for leaving us seeing beautiful in weeds.
Sometimes life gets a little hairy. The holidays, complicated family dynamics, starchy foods, Crisco... whatever the recipe for you own brain cloud post-holiday season, there is a beautiful solution just waiting for you right outside your own door (or at the closest park). Yesterday was a beautiful day in Atlanta, Georgia, USA. The ground was soft from the previous weeks' rain, the sun was out, and the temperature climbed into the low 60s. Determined to get a head-start on my to-do list (formerly known as a New Year's Resolution list), I headed outside in shorts with my elbow gloves and pruning shears. What a glorious day! What a blessing to have such a great back yard! And weeds!
The joy of creating space as I wrenched them from my overgrown beds awaited. Surveying my yard, I picked the thickest grove of weeds and ivy I could find and started working. As I tore vines and ripped roots from the earth, I discovered childhood remnants of the previous family to live in our home. Good finds, emblematic of a youth well spent: I found sparkly-painted rocks, frisbees buried under a thicket of vines from twenty New Year's past, baseballs, even beer cans. As I worked, my mind also toiled. I thought about my own family, the one I grew up in. I thought about the good past and the more complicated present. I turned the previous week at home and its associated shrapnel over in my mind until the jagged edges were smooth and I could safely toss it around without getting hurt. I muscled my way through the weeds, and in doing so, cleared a few from my own head. Three hours later, I stood up, stretched my back, and surveyed what I'd accomplished. My hydrangeas were cheering for the new space around their tender limbs, free at last from the vines that were breaking them down. My azaleas, cleared of the weeds growing underneath their broad limbs, swayed freely in the breeze. And my boxwoods, no longer competing with the ivy snaking its way through their core, stood tall and proud. It was hard, tedious work, but my reward is a clean corner in my yard and mind. A starting place. A message to the rest of it all: I mean business.
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Are you looking for a tangible reminder to see beautiful, or know someone who needs one? Check out our See Beautiful™ products (and feel good knowing a portion of proceeds from every purchase is donated to charity. This month a portion of all proceeds will be donated to The Dressing Room Project). Click HERE.
Sometimes life gets a little hairy. The holidays, complicated family dynamics, starchy foods, Crisco... whatever the recipe for you own brain cloud post-holiday season, there is a beautiful solution just waiting for you right outside your own door (or at the closest park). Yesterday was a beautiful day in Atlanta, Georgia, USA. The ground was soft from the previous weeks' rain, the sun was out, and the temperature climbed into the low 60s. Determined to get a head-start on my to-do list (formerly known as a New Year's Resolution list), I headed outside in shorts with my elbow gloves and pruning shears. What a glorious day! What a blessing to have such a great back yard! And weeds!
The joy of creating space as I wrenched them from my overgrown beds awaited. Surveying my yard, I picked the thickest grove of weeds and ivy I could find and started working. As I tore vines and ripped roots from the earth, I discovered childhood remnants of the previous family to live in our home. Good finds, emblematic of a youth well spent: I found sparkly-painted rocks, frisbees buried under a thicket of vines from twenty New Year's past, baseballs, even beer cans. As I worked, my mind also toiled. I thought about my own family, the one I grew up in. I thought about the good past and the more complicated present. I turned the previous week at home and its associated shrapnel over in my mind until the jagged edges were smooth and I could safely toss it around without getting hurt. I muscled my way through the weeds, and in doing so, cleared a few from my own head. Three hours later, I stood up, stretched my back, and surveyed what I'd accomplished. My hydrangeas were cheering for the new space around their tender limbs, free at last from the vines that were breaking them down. My azaleas, cleared of the weeds growing underneath their broad limbs, swayed freely in the breeze. And my boxwoods, no longer competing with the ivy snaking its way through their core, stood tall and proud. It was hard, tedious work, but my reward is a clean corner in my yard and mind. A starting place. A message to the rest of it all: I mean business.
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Are you looking for a tangible reminder to see beautiful, or know someone who needs one? Check out our See Beautiful™ products (and feel good knowing a portion of proceeds from every purchase is donated to charity. This month a portion of all proceeds will be donated to The Dressing Room Project). Click HERE.
LOVE-LOVE-LOVE it! Thank you, Shelley, for writing this. And thank you, Lydia, for sharing it with us. Happy New Year!
ReplyDeleteThe therapy of gardening, there is nothing like it in my book... Shelley's words resonate with me on so many levels. Thanks for this wonderful post.
ReplyDeleteShel....what an awesome post! Thanks for reminding me to see the beauty in ALL things.
ReplyDeleteThis was wonderful! Awesome indeed!! Thank you!! Happy New Year!!
ReplyDeletexo
Jeanne