climbing flowers

The climbing flower winds

it’s way around.

Always reaching upward.

Surrounded by the tiny spaces

between each sculpted branch.

Spaces to be filled by tomorrow.

Spaces to stop and rest.

With climbing comes taking,

and this plant knows no other way to ask

than to take root,

grab a hold,

and pull itself up

gently from the earth.

week 30. Survival

I’ve been trying to relax these last few day left of the summer. I finally had a moment to slow down but it was hard to get used to thinking about what I felt like doing when so much of these past few weeks were focused on what others need. So many things have come in unexpectedly. They never mean to take space in my worrisome mind, at 2 am when I can’t sleep. But they do. I’ve come to accept this is just how I’m made. I worry. I think through details much of my waking (and sleeping) hours, weather I like it or not. This made me think that being there for others is important but it is also important make sure there is room for ourselves.

Anyway, in this process of finding time for myself I started to think about the space that plants take up. Climbing plants just seem seem to fill in the empty spaces. They don’t ask politely. They just climb on in. If the conditions are right they know how to thrive. The survival instinct is strong in all of us, plants being no different. Recently I meet up with an old friend who had been through a difficult experience. We talked about how when life gets hard there is no time to stop and question things. You just know what needs to be done and you do it. This is that survival instinct once again; the body and mind just come to together to find a way to get you through another day.