Like a Rolling Stone

Omniscient They say rolling stones gather no moss. And I guess that is true (though they may pick up a good bit of mud as they roll on). So does it follow that a stone at rest, growing moss, becomes stuck; trapped in its opaque moss casing? It is also true that one must slow down in order to notice that the constantly moving stone is gathering no plant matter.

Because we humans have well-honed selective--dare I say faulty--memory, we must record and compare to be sure of whether or not one something is different this year from last. I am a recorder, if not much else. Last year in a mid-January blog post, I included a picture of the first bloom on the winter jasmine. The photo above is this year's mid-January winter jasmine.

I started this blog in May 2010, thinking I would record a year in the garden, and after that there would be nothing new to write about and I would stop. But I just keep on rolling. And neither I nor the garden gather moss. I am different. The garden is different. The blog has become my journal of a life--all that's fit to print (which means a lot is left out). I no longer keep a journal in my own hand, which is a little sad to me, but there is a lot less verbal diarrhea and a lot more intentionality. When I did keep the journal, though, I often looked back at the same time in a previous year. And I often thought, "Good God, nothing has changed." I wondered how I could get unstuck. But the truth is, everything changes; it's just so tiny and slow that it doesn't always seem like it. The days whip by, the seasons cycle through at lightening speed, and our lives roll on inch by excruciating inch. That doesn't mean there is no change.

A year ago this month I tore my meniscus. In May I had surgery. My record of healing comes in the form of yoga. In fact, noticing change throughout my body is recorded in Julie's yoga classes at the YMCA. My very least favorite pose when I began yoga--when? three years ago, four? I must look back in my journals--was the dreadful pigeon (Eka Pada Kapotasana--I don't think I have heard Julie use the sanskrit name for that one). I don't know why it came to be my favorite over time. Perhaps because it is one that initially I Could Not Do At All. And then I could. It is a major victory. But after the injury and even more after knee surgery, I couldn't do it again on the right side. I suppose I did notice that each time we did it, I could bend it a little more and for a tiny bit longer, but I had given up thinking I would ever again do it completely. And, frankly, all I really cared about was the end goal. But this week I did it, a full year after the injury. (I still can't do a straight-legged forward fold with my palms on the floor. I think Never is a safe word with that one.)

That caring only about the end goal gives me pause. That's why we don't notice change. We tend to overlook the miniscule. We look too far ahead. And too far ahead looks too far to ever reach. And so we imagine that we are stuck--no longer a rolling stone. When we get stuck, stuff sticks to us, and that keeps us more stuck. There is a mathematical principle that I read in some novel several months back. It got my attention, so I wrote it down in my electronic file of Things I Might Want to Explore in a Blog Post. "Never start with the unknown variable." Even though we might think we know what's down the road, we really don't. It is an unknown variable. So we start with what we know. I think the same thing might be true when I begin the time in my life that what's ahead is most certain to be decline. The variable might be worse or better than what I imagine; but what I have is what I can notice and fall in love with today. My mother has started calling me, or sending me a note or even an email! about things she is falling in love with in that moment--like the fog in the valley. She often tells me what she has not been able to do; I love when she tells me what brings her joy. 

Shake off the moss. Shake off the mud. You are not stuck. Notice that pigeon is easier this month than it was last month. Start noticing the tiny buds on the hydrangea. One day they will have extravagant orbs of tiny flowers, or there might be a blight or an insect infestation or a hydrangea-loving deer. But right now the leaves are budding and beginning their slow rolling journey toward fullness. Rejoice in today's tiny bud. And eat your muffin one delicious bite at a time.