What's so Amazing About Really Deep Thoughts...?

 The title of this entry stems from Tori Amos, for no good reason that I can think of other than that it popped into my head and refused to go away. I love it when that happens. You get a scrap of dialogue, a comment, a lyric, a sound, some minor inkling of a thing, and it stays put. It's uncomplicated and not terribly profound; just a little thing that inserts itself into your subconscious, moves up into your consciousness, and sets up house there, and it is your job to figure out why it came and what to do with it while it stays. It's like a crossword puzzle - a mindless but generally enjoyable exercise in fitting the pieces together and seeing what you come up with.

If you really stop to think about it, this is something of an analogy to life itself. Things come and go - people, events, activities, places - and sometimes they are just entertaining and sometimes they are very important indeed, and it is our job to figure out why they are there and what to do with them. I think this is a task that in today's world has become much more difficult than it used to be, simply owing to the fact that there are such a multitude of things to pick and choose from on a regular basis, and we are so engrossed in trying to make it through the day that we sometimes miss what is most touching, most impactful, most useful to us; even if it is right there before our eyes, we so often fail to recognize the profound in the myriad of Other with which we are bombarded.

I planted roses in front of our house when we moved in two years ago. We were only renting the place, but there was a big, ugly bush of an indeterminate nature on the left-hand side facing the street, and I could see no good reason for its remaining there. So I yanked and pulled and dug and cursed and got good and dirty pulling the thing out by the roots, extracting it, making certain to leave no stray shoot to creep back in unannounced and undesired, and then I planted eight little rosebushes. It was March, so these little rosebushes lay dormant for a good bit, despite all of the water and fertilizer and rosebush food I lavished upon them, and I began to wonder why I had gone to the trouble in the first place if they were just going to sit thee and do nothing. (As a teacher, I have plenty of other things in my life that sit there and do nothing regularly; I was kind of hoping for a bit more on the nature front.) But then, around May or so, there was a new shoot on one of the bushes, and then on another; little reddish, curling leaves, new growth. And then, by June, a few of them were shooting towards the sky, getting tall and thick in the stems, looking more like rosebushes and less like shapeless, nameless plants of no discernible use. And then, mid-June of that first year, I got a single, beautiful, creamy white rose. Just the one, but it was a fragrant one, and it seemed to promise a lot more to come, as I paused on my way out the door to sniff at it. And then, about mid-July, there were more - two red roses on one bush, a pink rose on another. In August, one tiny plant that had failed to grow just withered and died. There was no reason for it that I could see - the other plants all thrived in the same spot - but this little rosebush, for whatever reason, just couldn't make a go of it, and I was sorry both for the bush and for myself. But the beauty and fragrance of the other roses blooming away did much to make this moment easier, and the roses and I continued on.

It is now the third year of roses chez nous, and much has changed. We have a two year old daughter. We lost our venerable old Persian cat to old age and sickness. We bought the house. The rosebushes have grown taller and thicker. But the flowers themselves, as they come and go, remind me that despite all of the change there is constancy, and that each new experience, just as each new rose, is both new and familiar all at once, and my responsibility in all of this is to weed, water, spray the pestkiller and, most important of all, to stop and smell the roses. I may like the smell and look of some of them more than others, but I need to be certain to at least remark upon each of them, because they are there and I caused them to be there; their purpose is to be beautiful and fragrant and this requires me to be present to witness that they have fulfilled this purpose. Sometimes, a bush we ourselves planted - like a person, an experience, or a thing - seems very important at first, but withers and dies and goes away, and we are best served by letting that one go in favor of those that remain. The rosebushes remind me that I should pay attention to my life and to the things that come and go within it, that I should look around and pause and reflect upon what I see and experience, because a life without consideration bears no purpose; like a crossword puzzle, the clues lead to answers but the final product is simply a series of right answers, and life should be more than that. A life considered is a whole entity, the pieces fit together and become coherent and it has meaning, purpose, clarity and profundity.

So - what's so amazing about really deep thoughts? Nothing, until the thinker examines them, reshuffles them, and organizes them so that they become amazing. I highly recommend rosebushes as a catalyst for this. Every morning on our way out the door, my daughter and I stop to smell the roses in our front yard. If I happen to be in a tearing hurry (and who among us is not?) I am not allowed to forget this all-important pause in the day - my two year old reminds me crossly, "Mommy, thtop to smell da woses wight now!" And so I do. Two year olds don't dwell on really deep thoughts. Everything is amazing to them, everything is part of the bigger picture, they haven't had time to second-guess and undermine their own consciousness. They don't really need Tori Amos, or crossword puzzles. But (at least in Anna's case) they sure love the roses.