I’m starting this blog post with no idea how it will end (not uncommon for me). All I know is I need to process this mini metaphor (pictured) that cropped up in my backyard – my one zinnia, born of countless seeds, sown in three different attempts at creating my beloved summer cutting garden. Oh, and it bloomed on my 53rd birthday.
The old Leah would classify this as an omen of hope, the universe’s way of asking me not to give up. Just when I was sure nothing took root, this cropped up.
But a long, hard summer, devoid of gardens to tend and the joy of anything blooming, left me disinclined to see potential in this one, lonely zinnia. I snapped this pic, focused on the irony instead of the beauty. Now I’m just counting the days until summer is over and a good frost wipes this slate clean.
My husband walked out on the first day of fall, temporarily ruining that day for me, but this year I’m going to embrace it as the anniversary of my own clean slate. I’ve spent the last four years trying to re-grow what I had before he left and, like my failed zinnia garden, none of it is taking root. So I think this fall I will let the change in season inspire some changes in me.
The beauty of fall requires no work on my part. No preparation, no tending, just some clean-up when it’s over, followed by a much needed respite from worrying about what’s happening outside. I will decorate my mantle, light fires in my fireplace, and tend to what is inside for a while. Then we’ll see what I’m ready to grow next year.
Thank you for sharing. All it took was a start, one zinnia. In each of our seasons, we start with one and our journey takes us to many more. Blessings,
Mick Saunders
Leah, you have no idea how much you’ve been on my mind these last few weeks (you’re always in there somewhere, just sometimes more prominently “forward” than others). I’ve been pondering the power of the ampersand, and then along comes this one zinnia. So now in thinking of you, I’m wondering…you’ve always been a person of such abundance, as in abundant talent and gifts and ideas and undertakings. So to have a scarcity–especially after so much effort–must feel like a denial of Leah. I have no wisdom about any of this, but I do have to wonder if that negation might be the point–or A point: the resting, the ceasing of work and effort on your part. I don’t know. But I wonder. Perhaps in the resting and the cessation of striving, Leah-as-she-is-rather-than-was is to be found. What I do know is that I treasure you–and your friendship–as you are, how you are, at any season.
I love the thought of how fall beauty takes no doing on our part. And that you all begin this fall and nurture Leah-as-she-is, whom we all believe in and cherish.