as sunflowers age, their woody stems lose the ability to turn back and forth – east and west – in their track of the sun. instead, their older, more mature stalks keep them more planted, most often facing east – to capture the rising sun and warmth from early morning’s rays, to stoke up.
now, i’m guessing that it would be easier for the sunflower if it were able to continually use their magical heliotropism superpower their whole life, but – much like humans – some of their flexibility fades as they get older and they deal with life differently as an aged sunflower.
in the storylines of our own lives, it would be much easier if we were able to constantly pivot to goodness – the sun, easy answers, fixes, healing solutions, the fair solving of problems, any evil affecting us succumbing to accountability.
to think that all might go our way – the first time – or, heck, any time at all – sounds mighty fine.
but life as a sunflower isn’t like that. and neither is life as a human.
instead, lots of times we must set down our expectations and take a breath. a deep breath.
we allow a bit of time to readjust: to maybe grieve, to pine for a different result, to rail over outcomes dashed.
we reassess. we sort. we brainstorm.
we strategize. we plan.
we gear up.
and then – we rise up – with strong and straight spine – and face the next day, ready for what comes next. whatever it is.
the zoom meeting facilitator asked us to state a few things as we introduced ourselves: our name, our race and gender identification, what we would want our superpower to be, were we to have one.
the first woman who stated her name et al said, “i would want my superpower to be able to read people’s minds.”
i shuddered. why on earth, in the social-media-middle of seeing every single thing people are thinking and doing and opining and touting and boasting and ego-stroking and proselytizing and whining about, every place they have gone, are going, will go, every squat-thrust, deep-knee-bend, downward dog they have ever managed, every hair on the bodies of their sweet furry pets, every ingredient in every recipe for every meal, every factoid about every little atom of their lives, would you want to read people’s minds?
the others laughed and added their thoughts about this woman’s desire, but when it was my turn to respond to her superpower-wish, i said, “as an empath, i would like to NOT be able to read people’s minds.” good grief. enough already.
it has been my experience that hiding, snoozing and unfollowing are the only ways to survive some of the ugliness in social media. now, i don’t readily hide, snooze or unfollow. after all, i do want to see other thoughts on issues, different perspectives about topics where i disagree or which i haven’t given much time. but when things get ugly, and people are over-the-top, a “hide” or “unfollow” or “snooze” are good ways to save yourself a few moments of W-T-F!-exhaustion. i try to remember that these “friends” are often people i haven’t seen in many decades and will likely never see again in ‘real life’. nevertheless, i still linger in astounded feelings of betrayal.
so when i passed this post canoeing down the FB river, i laughed at the use of the term “power-user”. perhaps this person would have listed their superpower as “button-clicker”. for with that mere button-click there is self-preservation. with that mere button-click there is silence. with that mere button-click there is unity. eliminate all those who annoy you or disagree with you and you have utopia. or do you?
it would seem a pretty bland world that way. the woven threads of the country would flatten out, the tapestry no longer ripe with diverse ideas, no longer a myriad of textures, no longer heterogeneous. soporific uniformity would cover the land. and the fire beneath the melting pot would cease to burn.
reverse threading 