Weed Your Own Garden

I spent three hours today weeding part of my gardens. I was taking out the clumps of long grasses that seem to come with the water. They're not lawn, which grows in tight proximity to itself; these are long-leafed grasses with stringer roots. I pulled one today that had roots at least 3 feet long...just a few green leaves and then a terribly long root. It's hard to distinguish these grasses from the beginnings of my fireweed plants. Fireweed is a local wildflower which I have carefully cultivated in my garden for four years. This year there are probably 20 fireweed plants and I am thrilled to see it thriving, but I did kill some fireweed plants in my weeding. I kept thinking they were killed by "friendly fire," much like some men are killed in war. Getting the bad things out often hurts the good things surrounding it.

Today as I weeded, I could hear the pond running....right now we've got water pumping through a filtration system to clear out algae that sprouts and blooms every spring. It's covering everything in the pond with a green-gray slime, and we're treating the water as well as using a filter. It doesn't matter that the sound comes from such a mundane beginning....it still sounds like a lovely waterfall and it's comforting.

It's been raining in Salt Lake, and for a few minutes this morning while I was outside, it seemed as if there were snow flakes...the sky was gray but it wasn't cold. While I was working I kept thinking about how wonderful it is to have the time to cultivate a garden. I am generally an organized person who accomplishes a lot; however, I am not methodical. I don't work in my garden every day, and there are always weeds that could be pulled. But today, Voltaire's words kept coming to me, "Everyone must cultivate his own garden." It's easy to see the weeds and flaws in someone else's garden, not always easy to see our own. Right now, the weed I'm working on in my personality garden is impatience. I want things done quickly, and I generally want them done the way I think they should be done. I'm trying to fix that, and pulling out the very long roots of the pesky grasses made me see how deeply ingrained some flaws and habits are. It isn't enough to cut them off at the root; we have to get a firm hold and pull the root out. That takes time and patience.

When I think of the ways I backslide daily in my search to root out impatience in my life, I'll want to remember how slow the work was to get the whole root out.