Marvel at aliveness.
The midwest gets a bad rap on...well...almost anything.
People on the coasts love to knock the midwest.
Frankly, before Nashville was so cool everyone used to bash the south too.
And well, come to think of it, midwesterners tend not to be too keen on the midwest either. They are quick to complain too.
But I am not here to defend the south. Nor really defend the midwest. I want to share what I love, not defend.
It has been a wet and rainy midwestern spring. Plenty warm, but not necessarily hot. It has been quite tropical in fact. Rain almost every day or every other day along with bouts of sunshine, warmth and humidity has made me feel the utter aliveness around me.
I cannot weed the garden and flowerbeds faster than seeds send forth a fragile but fierce leaf looking to gather energy from the sun.
When I sit on the front porch the gnats and misquitos greet me eagerly with their dancing feet.
The finches earnestly build and rebuild a next in our hanging plant laying 3 eggs and caretaking another 2 cowbird adoptees.
The midwest is wearing her humidity like a cozy or stifling blanket each morning awash with dew.
It is easy to hate the weeds, the bugs, the birds, the humidity.
It is easy to see what is uncomfortable and hard.
But I find myself marveling at the way that I am part of the alivenss.
I cannot conquer the weeds, I have to welcome their presence in the garden.
I cannot deter every bug, knowing that I will be someone's meal and chance at survival.
I laugh at the finches, at least them I can offer a home.
I don't enjoy the humid reminder that the air is warmer and wetter than my own breathe, but it sometimes feels like I am not sure where my own damp heat and the damp heat of the world around me separate.
The fact of the matter is I am but one body, one bit of the aliveness in the world.
I am perhaps no more important than the finch, the worm, the misquito, the gnat.
I might be unconfortable with the humid hotness, but the corn loves it, the chokeweed laughs at it, and the mildew on my strawberries has a future generation to propagate. And before I know it summer will be loudly awash in locusts.
People on the coasts love to knock the midwest.
Frankly, before Nashville was so cool everyone used to bash the south too.
And well, come to think of it, midwesterners tend not to be too keen on the midwest either. They are quick to complain too.
But I am not here to defend the south. Nor really defend the midwest. I want to share what I love, not defend.
It has been a wet and rainy midwestern spring. Plenty warm, but not necessarily hot. It has been quite tropical in fact. Rain almost every day or every other day along with bouts of sunshine, warmth and humidity has made me feel the utter aliveness around me.
I cannot weed the garden and flowerbeds faster than seeds send forth a fragile but fierce leaf looking to gather energy from the sun.
When I sit on the front porch the gnats and misquitos greet me eagerly with their dancing feet.
The finches earnestly build and rebuild a next in our hanging plant laying 3 eggs and caretaking another 2 cowbird adoptees.
The midwest is wearing her humidity like a cozy or stifling blanket each morning awash with dew.
It is easy to hate the weeds, the bugs, the birds, the humidity.
It is easy to see what is uncomfortable and hard.
But I find myself marveling at the way that I am part of the alivenss.
I cannot conquer the weeds, I have to welcome their presence in the garden.
I cannot deter every bug, knowing that I will be someone's meal and chance at survival.
I laugh at the finches, at least them I can offer a home.
I don't enjoy the humid reminder that the air is warmer and wetter than my own breathe, but it sometimes feels like I am not sure where my own damp heat and the damp heat of the world around me separate.
The fact of the matter is I am but one body, one bit of the aliveness in the world.
I am perhaps no more important than the finch, the worm, the misquito, the gnat.
I might be unconfortable with the humid hotness, but the corn loves it, the chokeweed laughs at it, and the mildew on my strawberries has a future generation to propagate. And before I know it summer will be loudly awash in locusts.
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