Life Beneath the Layers

I slipped on my Carhartts and headed toward the nursery, a cloudy and frigid 32 degrees outside. This is what winter is suppose to feel like, all the time. But in just a couple more days the temperatures will jump back up to feel more like early Spring.

Yesterday I had closed the greenhouses due to the icy warnings and predictions that never came to be. Now I was headed to re-open them so as the greenhouses wouldn't heat up too much to trick the plants into believing Spring had finally come.

The propagation house is filled with cuttings that were planted months ago, not by me. One day they may be full grown plants, if they can successfully root into the soil. I looked at a couple of the crops of hydrangeas and viburnums. Their leaves had browned, detached, and were in the first phases of decay. I thought to myself how dead they looked and commemorated them for putting up the good fight.

Yes, I do talk to plants sometimes. It's a habit I have gained during my years down at the nursery. I use to talk to Snickers, but once she passed away I directed my thoughts to the plants. I'm sure they listen.

I began to pick up all of the dead leaves, leaving the stems in their tiny pot homes. As I did so, I noticed that some of the stems actually had buds on them. The plants weren't dead at all!

Inspiration comes in the strangest of forms sometimes.

"Sometimes you just need to pick off the dead leaves to find the life surviving beneath."

The Challenge in "Resting"

Over the past several weeks I have learned how to make beeswax lotion and candles, coconut-based shampoo/body wash, sketched garden ideas, job hunted, taught myself some new Yoga moves, indulged some Natural Science love, rekindled poetry, obsessed over my niece and cat, reflected the meaning of life and much more.

I have also watched a lot of Angel, MI-5, Once Upon A Time, movies, stalked Facebook, began Tweeting, created a Pinterest account and other guilty vice pleasures.

I feel I have grown much closer to my family in the past few months.

The greatest challenge is that there has been very little challenge involved. And I directly relate challenges to growth.

Physically not much has happened (no climbing, no backpacking, minimal hangboard workouts and hiking) and I find myself quite angsty. Emotionally there has been a lot of running to and fro, leaving me exhausted and bewildered. At most times people do not realize the internal hysteria and panic that rushes through my veins during times like these.

As a person that strongly believes every period in our lives significantly guides us in a future direction, I am often left at the end of my thoughts wondering, "Where the heck is this period of rest leading me?" Many people can take times like this and create something big out of it. Me, well I find that when I remain constantly busy I am much more motivated to jump into other productive facets. Galileo's Law of Inertia comes to mind. I require a constant external force to keep the momentum going.

Two years after creating this blog I am still learning how to shape motivation internally. My life is about to go through a very pivotal change.

A Place Where Dreams Come True

(I began this post before leaving for Thailand...obviously. I never got a chance to post it. So here it is months after my return!)

Wes and I finally had the chance to sit down and begin my first Thai lesson. He began palms together over his heart, "Sawat dee krap." Easy, I thought. I know this one. I responded with the female greeting, "Sawat dee ka." And we began.

Typically, I can pick up on the basics of languages fairly quickly. In high school I received the Spanish Award by our Senor. In college I took two semesters of Hellenistic Greek with about eight other students. My teacher also awarded me with the "Excellence in Hellenistic Greek" award gifted with a book of Greek Proverbs. In Germany last summer I studiously flipped through the pages of the German guidebook in the airport and fervently asked vocabulary and sentence structure questions to Annett. By the end of the two weeks I could pick up some pieces of conversations and ask/answer more than just basic questions (in rough German). Languages to me are a peek into cultures. Many words and phrases are inappropriately translated because the cultural interactions behind them are missing.

"Kun bpai nai?" "Pom ja bpai Thailand."

We went over all the phrases to help Daniel and I find places, ask for prices, tell people where we are going, etc. Wes iterated that it did not matter how well we could say the inflections, because about 90% of the tourists in Thailand do not even worry about learning the language.

He then transitioned to the "magic" of Thailand. "It is a place where dreams come true," came very matter-of-factly out of his mouth. My first thought traveled to Disney World set in Thailand. But he continued, "If you open your heart to Thailand, it will answer your questions and dreams." Wes followed that statement with personal stories of his and friends that had similar experiences.

Wouldn't it be nice. For my dreams to come true. All I desire is an answer to my single question, "What actually is my dream?"