today, i spent some quality time with my mom and the hoe. yes, a very large dirty hoe. i decided to swap my sweat time at the gym with some real sweat from the sun. with my hands and knees upon the earth and the soil between my toes is when i began to get philosophical...so it began with a little bit of pulling and tugging of jap cho, aw how cute these little pieces are.... until i struck a deep cord somewhere down in the thick of things. this was not a weed, indeed. i wanted to rid my life of it immediately. i began to get all obsessive, digging and pulling. gardening is interesting because it requires a balance of powerful sternness and a delicate hand to ensure that you don't rip the root out prematurely. basically; dedication & patience. my mom couldn't understand why i was concentrating so roughly on such a beastly thing, but after a watching my struggle, i think she began to understand the feeling of catharsis i was working for and silenced herself.
as i continued to labor, i felt like i was at war with my life. the thing about weeding (literally and figuratively) is that you don't really notice the deep-rootedness of the issue (or the sin) until you begin to realize its presence in the garden and actively search the soil. it is then that you are appalled by the depth and the stubbornness of its hold on your life. and just when you think you've got it, the tricky bugger has sprouted sideways to different areas extending deeper and deeper into crevices unreachable. BUT! oh, how glorious it is to persevere until you physically hold the defeated roots of that deep-seeded labor! i have never felt so victorious over such an insignificant thing.
and now that i have downed a cold glass of naked juice, back to the hoe i go.
there are many more weeds i need to unearth...
