"Oh dear. She's really let herself go".
We've all thought this, maybe even whispered it out loud, but none of us want to be that person, our physical demise the subject of so many post-reunion dinner conversations.
As you may know, I currently live in a house that has, for lack of a nicer description, "fallen into disrepair". Over the past several years, untamed roots and vines have greedily devoured wood, brick and mortar. Brambles and wild, woody weeds have been busy choking out the farm's gracious beauty, hogging all the light, all the soil, all the life.
With each consecutive sunrise on the farm, I grow more convinced that people and things don't just "fall" into disrepair. Neglect is not passive. It happens one excuse after another.
As a new caretaker to a longtime neglected farm house, and as a coach of people, the similarities in what is required for vibrant health and enduring beauty are astounding.
We have to weed.
We have to get dirty and tired.
We have to TEND.
We make room for beauty and life by ripping out the root of what is only going to devour us in the end.
Take for example this wretched weed. Above ground, it was almost two stories tall when we arrived. Below ground, I do believe it's roots reached all the way to China.
We hacked and whacked for hours that stretched into days and hardly made a dent. Then, finally, hooked up a borrowed chain (from Larry, of course) to our ancient TRACTOR to pull out the root of all evil.
Neglect is not passive.
Neither is beauty.
The honest, salty and difficult endeavor of making room cares for the dying crepe myrtles, prepares a sunny home for the butterflies and blue jays, and a creates a fertile space for the baby fall vegetables to call home.
Excuses leave the stubborn, underground root alone. It's too hard to rip out after all, it requires too much of us.
Excuses do not make room.
Excuses say "We don't really need flowers there, anyway."
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