A Root Runs Through It

I get to the Cafe this morning and realize I have forgotten my cell phone. The phone is my umbilical cord to the world. Text messages from friends (a feature I unashamedly admit I am addicted to) remind me I am on someone's mind. (The fact that it rarely actually rings also reminds me that I am not regularly on anyone's mind...) We have become so rooted to the knowledge that someone we need to be in touch with is right there, that we worry when they don't respond immediately to our outreach. I'm not sure that's always a good thing; and I hope anyone who might try to reach me this morning won't worry. Well, it might be nice if they are a little concerned. What I most love about my cell phone--and texting--though, is that if something strikes me as lovely or touching or comical in any given moment and I want to share it with someone, I shoot off a text message--perhaps even a picture--to a friend I know will enjoy the light touch. And they do the same with me. And in those moments, I feel rooted and connected to a world larger than the one immediately around me. And that is a good thing.

There is a pervasive root in my yard that is the orange-yellow color of bailing twine. In some places it is spidery thin and in others it is as big around as my wrist. I don’t know for sure which plant lays claim to it, but I suspect the trailing rose that must have been beautiful on the fence in its day, but now gets no sun. When I pull the root up where I want to convert yard to garden, it often ejects to the point of the spidery network at the end, which, as it comes out of the ground, loosens the soil and provides a good planting place. When I was building the flagstone path at the side of my house--my first garden--it pulled up the sod and made preparing the ground a much easier task. Sometimes, however, I can’t remove it and I have to dig my hole in a different spot and plant around it.

I named the root Audrey, because its omnipresence has been a horror. Later in my garden projects though, I found myself feeling differently about it. The One who is More is a root that runs through my life, providing nourishment and stability, always there whether I want the relationship or not. Sometimes More blocks my way--like when a dysfunctional relationship or activity is feeling too comfortable in its familiarity and I am unable to turn away from it on my own--and makes me change course, turning in a healthier direction. Even when I don’t want to. And More sometimes clears the way for loosening my heart and opening me up to plant something new. Now, when my spade or my trowel comes upon the Audrey root, rather than swearing at it, I thank More for the reminder of the constant presence of love and care. I am never forgotten.

I finished my patio this week; and that is really what has gotten me thinking about roots. There is a root running through it that, unlike Audrey, I was concerned about cutting. I don't want to weaken the big tree that I think it is supporting. Probably it's not of a lot of importance to the tree, being one of many roots, and a relatively small one at that. But who am I to decide what is essential to someone else's survival? And so I determine that it, and a couple of other roots at the edge of the circle, will be part of the design of my patio. Like I have learned to do in my life, I don't even try to plan what it might look like. I will figure it out when I get there.

I ponder, as I lay the 400 donated, recycled, multi-colored bricks, the roots that run through my life. The one with the most girth is change. It is also the one I would have least expected. The first root that comes from a plant is called the radicle. It was my assumption that my radicle would be a life partner and that that relationship would provide the nutrients and the grounding anchor running through the entirety of my life--at least until death did us part. That root was cut off many years ago. But plants have many kinds of roots; and in a diffuse root system, the primary root is not even dominant. (Thank you Wikipedia, for that. Who knew?) I am going out on a limb here and muse that making one person (or one career or one fill-in-the-blank) dominant will weaken the relationship rather than strengthen it. My favorite kind of root (that I just this moment learned of) is the adventitious root. I love the name, sounds like adventure--which is certainly an unexpectedly dominant root in my life. Adventitious roots arise out-of-sequence from the more usual root formation of branches of a primary root, and instead originate from the stem, branches, leaves, or old woody roots. Because I lack the usual primary root, I have grown roots from all parts of my life. Like the nurse logs in the rain forest (fallen, rotting trees from which new trees spring up), the new structures my life are dependent on the foundation provided by fallen structures. I do not discount the importance of that which has gone before.

My children, my mother, my sisters, my relationship with God-the-One-who-is-More, my heart-string connection to mountains. These are the longest roots running through my life; the ones that are as long as I am--nearly 60 years long--or at least as long as they are. I wish friends were included in that list. My living is not rooted in life-long friendships; and that is a sadness. Worship/Church--the kind contained within walls--is another anchoring root running through my life. The girth of it has kept me working around it for the past couple of years--protecting it, but not always engaging it, as I find Church in other places provides me with more nutrients. It has recently, and rather suddenly, become clear to me that it is time to stop working around it and cut it off. Writing this blog and the garden that inspires it has become the adventitious root, supporting me, feeding me, anchoring my relationship with More. Though the building will continue to be my workplace, and the people there will continue to be my friends--the church part has become a haustorial root, one that sucks the life out of me rather than providing sustenance.

And so, my patio is complete. The root runs through it. Time will tell if roots that I damaged in its creation will cause stress to the trees and plants that were counting on them for good health. Like the dogwood, whose roots I damaged planting the windows under it in a past year, bounced back after a year of compromised health; like my emotional health in the months after damaged or cut off relationships, I trust that they will survive in the long-term if not the short. They will grow new roots, or depend on other parts of their vast network to provide them with nutrients. Life will go on. We have many roots running through our lives. And a great capacity to grow more.

(Click here for a slideshow of the creation of my patio,  Patio Creation.)