described as “too vigorous”, creeping bellflower, gorgeous purple flowers and all, is considered noxious and invasive. i know people like that.
as a matter of fact, the other day while we were strolling along the lakefront, we passed someone i know who is quite bellflowerish. without hesitation, i immediately began an animated conversation with david, complete with hand gestures and enthusiastic arm movements, my face intent on his as i told him the non-story and he stared at me, knowingly.
there are just some people who are best avoided.
had we stopped, even to exchange pleasantries, the conversation would have shifted to mining. this person mines for details, details, details, for gossip, for information. too vigorous, noxious and invasive, masked by curiosity and feigned intense interest, this person has always been a miner. avoidance is best, just like creeping bellflower. it looks lovely and inviting, beautiful purple flowers standing tall, but it will reseed – your newsy news – and spread it all out in gardens near and far, your personal story strewn all over, regardless of soil, aggressively spread like a weed.
the most robust plant can produce up to 15,000 seeds annually and self-sow in the wind. bellflower can overwhelm other, less aggressive, plants as they strive to co-exist. they are tough to eradicate in a gentle garden.
beware. creeping bellflowers will run over you and your garden.
the mimosa tree grew in the middle of the front yard, its fanning leaves dappling the southern sunshine streaming through it. pink and white flowers adorned its graceful branches; it was beautiful color on a wooded lot full of big oaks and maples. the roots of a mimosa are invasive and the pods and brittleness and attraction to disease put it on the do-not-plant list. but it spelled home, and, though i don’t remember the ultimate reason it needed to be taken down, i do remember how its absence felt.
the pink bloom stopped me in the middle of the botanic garden greenhouse. it wasn’t a duplicate of our mimosa; it may not even have been a mimosa. but the pompom shape and the blossom echoed our tree’s blooms and, instantly, i was taken back home.
the mourning doves have started cooing. we’ve seen robins. wild turkeys were out on the bike trail as we walked and talked. a pudgy squirrel lingered on our deck rail in the sun and the birds are lining up on the fence to take turns at the birdfeeder. it is another spring – soon. it rolls on and on. time.
we watched an interview…a man in ukraine who – devastatingly – lost his wife and two children was talking with erin burnett (cnn) who earlier had been reporting from ukraine but is back in ny now. tears streaming down her face, she struggled to hold onto her composure as she prompted this gentleman to speak about his children, his wife. less than a month ago he had a normal life. i’d believe the thought of losing his family to a violent bombing invasion was far from his mind. in what is mere minutes (only 30,240 minutes) all was gone.
there are mimosas in ukraine. called acacia trees they canopy parks and walkways, their pompoms and curtained branches greeting all those who walk underneath. i would imagine that somewhere there was a house with a front yard. and in that front yard sat a mimosa.
now, 30,240 minutes later, there is nothing. not because the tree’s roots were lifting the sidewalk or the spent blooms were littering the grass or the seeds are toxic to animals. no. they are decimated because they – along with their people – were blown to bits in acts of cruelty, in heinous evil. it takes our breath away. no more mimosas. no more homes.
i know little to nothing about farming. driving through eastern colorado, missouri, all of kansas, iowa and across the state of wisconsin, there are patchworks of farmfields that stretch on seemingly forever. gorgeous and rich in the colors of good dirt and rising plants, we admired the quilted beauty of our roadtrip and talked about farming as we passed the lives of people we would never meet.
the billboard read, “don’t let pigweed creep back!” it was an imperative to research. pigweed is, apparently, insidious and something that hardworking people who have chosen crop-growing, stock, and all means of agriculture, have to deal with. pigweed can be toxic to livestock and will aggressively take over grain and soybean fields. it is resistant to mitigation and hard to control. it can be destructive. once eradicated, one must remain vigilant about its presence so as to avoid further damage to crops and animals.
i am struck by how this invasive plant mimics what has happened in the political arena of our living.
we had just, a mere couple hours before, stopped at a gas station to fill up big red and run into the restroom. wearing masks, we entered the convenience store where all conversation stopped as the door swung closed behind us. no one inside had on a mask and the stares at us were pointed and aggressive. it was unnerving. had we entered a miraculous-global-pandemic-free zone? or had we entered inside a building where pigweed had never left, where the insidious, toxic dis-ease of misinformation and selfishness was spreading its roots, reaching out underground and above to damage all within its cloying and suffocating grasp? is there no hope for this place with entrenched pigweed?
it would seem to me, as we read the current news of steps forward, of good intentions, of attempts to advance efforts toward equity and equality, social justice, healthcare, hunger and homelessness, of work to aid in getting past this horrid pandemic and all its fallout, that we should do all we can to not let pigweed creep back.
“neither be cynical about love; for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment, it is as perennial as the grass.” (desiderata, max ehrmann 1927)
i would venture to say that, for many, this is a time of spiritual aridity and woeful disenchantment. unconsolable worry, uneasiness, disillusionment, fear…pervasive as the humidity of early morning summer fog, the dew of late evening. we wait for the breeze to start to blow off the sticky and cool us down.
we speak up, for the winds of change will dispel our disease, our unease, our social injustice ill-at-ease. we stand, with love, at the ready to make it happen. we confront that which is not true, that which is harmful, hateful, that which is fear-mongering, that which incites violence and inequality among any and all people. for this we reap not benefits; instead we accumulate pervasive pushback, accusation, derision.
but love is, truly, as perennial as the grass. love will always lead the way out of aridity and disenchantment. love waits on the sidelines of the arena filled with division and hatred, ready to flow into the cracks. it’s our job as decent humans to create the cracks.
“and whatever your labors and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life, keep peace in your soul. with all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world.”
the “noisy confusion of life” punctuates our day with its rat-a-tat of false information, its innuendo, its delivery of agenda, its acrimony, its selfish serving of egos. the “sham, drudgery and broken dreams” are all around us.
and so is this beautiful world.
we walk past the pond, the wind on our faces. the grasses on the side beckon us to peek through. water lilies polka-dot the clear water. perennial as the sun, the morning and the dusk, the water lilies aerate the pond and keep the algae on the surface at a minimum, peacefully offering shelter to smaller sized fish.
but like many things that might look good on the surface, that might be aesthetically pleasing, that might speak to your individual soul, it is wise to be aware of the true qualities of water lilies and the perennials pondweed or yellow floating heart, plants that closely resemble them. many shockingly invasive, they can quickly take over, without others even noticing, choking out the life of the pond.
reverse threading 