On, In and Around Mondays: Focusing on the Wild

Every year, this lawn gets wilder. 

I have been letting it happen, even making it happen by spreading dandelion seeds to the wind, by refusing to mow the leopard-faced flowers that look something like violets but smaller and more elongated. This morning, I was greeted by more buttercups, more purple spike flowers, more wild mustard than I was last year in May.

I love this wildness, this lack of landscaping focus—in a county that prizes the pristine, the trimmed, the perfectly edged.

Suddenly, the thought rises in me—a thought I've been toying with in conversations and private musings for the past few weeks. I'm unfocused. Like my wild lawn. I am never going to win the prize for the best rose garden, the biggest and reddest tomatoes, the greenest dandelion-free grass. I am also never going to win the prize for being a national speaker, a top-selling author. I can't stand the focus it requires. 

One of the conversations I had, concerning this matter, was with a visionary photographer friend. She is far more than a photographer, dipping her hands into business and investments, and all manner of networking and people-building. I told her I really couldn't see her focusing on one aspect of photography and trying to make a name for herself that way. I asked, "Can you really picture yourself on a 5,000-ways-to-photograph-a-biscuit track?"

I also told her that this is a particular kind of gift, this wildness in her spirit, this vision she has to keep thinking up the next thing and then moving on.

I'm thinking this is me too. I can focus. I can focus on my wild ways. Spreading seed, cultivating the purple in life, building the raucous creativity of color in people and systems. I can let this happen, yes. I can even make it happen.

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On, In and Around Mondays (which partly means you can post any day and still add a link) is an invitation to write from where you are. Tell us what is on, in, around (over, under, near, by...) you. Feel free to write any which way... compose a tight poem or just ramble for a few paragraphs. But we should feel a sense of place. Would you like to try? Write something 'in place' and add your link below.

If you could kindly link back here when you post, it will create a central meeting place. :)



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This post is also shared with Laura Boggess, for...