The art of moving from floundering to finishing

The poppies revealed themselves in April. Self-seeded. Volunteers.

I thought... well, HELLO and THANKS.

A few years ago I was at the library book sale, which is so good it is dangerous. Outside was a garden where poppies were sashaying in the breeze. Oh hi! So friendly. So bright. I picked a seed head and snuck it into my pocket. Was I stealing? Maybe.

It felt a little like stealing... not unlike the library book sale. So many books. So little room in my car. So little room in my day!

I came home and scattered them in my garden. The seeds. Not the books. Nothing happened. It really didn't feel like stealing after nothing happened.

I moved on with my life. This year, those poppies showed up. Great big billowing poppies. Gorgeous and tall and proud.

Well, HELLO and THANKS.

There was about a week of this glorious morning salut. Then the rain came and pummelled the whole lot of them to the ground.

We needed the rain. We really did. But did the rain have to pummel my poppies?

So I had to rip them out. Believe me when I tell you I tried to save them. Standing them up, wishing and hoping. Fretting. But you can't fix a broken stem. (Saved the seed heads... I'm not insane.)

In the meantime, a friend had some plants that needed separating, so while the rain was pouring on one side of the house, I was unloading a car full of plants on the other side of the house.

Now I have a free space where the poppies were and BOOM, it's filled.This weird phenomena has been happening lately.

A strange spiritual balancing out.

I buy a friend a coffee. I get a coffee from another friend. I give a book away. I get a book. I send a letter. I get a letter. I even separated and gave away some of the plants in my garden. Now I have just as many but different plants from another garden. And it's not all with the same person.

This doesn't mean I'm getting ahead. Not by a long shot.

But it does feel like there is a sort of play happening with something or someone beyond myself. An Even-Steven game. It also feels like waiting. Like I'm being both sustained and held back so that perfect timing can reveal itself later.

I'm aware that I'm being a bit woo-hoo about all this.

I suppose those poppies weren't really self-seeded. They were seeded by me a few years ago. It's just that I forgot that I had a hand in the process. Cut to today. I'm taking some art classes and figuring out the next series of courses I'll be offering.

These classes are a sort of poppy seed. I'm also spending my days finishing things. My word for 2023 is FINISHING. I have had so many half finished projects in the last few years. Things stopped for one reason or another (lockdowns, illness, surgery, laundry).

I learned that how to finish something is to stop NOT finishing something.

Yes, to finish something you need to STOP not finishing the thing.

It's a whole other ballgame to just sit with a project once it hits the boring or frustrating bit and continue on until it's complete.

So I practiced finishing.

I finally reupholstered the bench, finished the book, dealt with the pile of papers, painted the frame, hung the photo, finished the puzzle, organized the shelf, even watching a movie all the way to the end. In all this, I learned just how scattered my brain has become. Is it parenthood? Age? Some sort of long Covid symptom? Long chemo symptom? Endless doom scrolling?

Short attention-span theatre.

That's what my world has become. What my brain has become. But that's not how things get done. Things get done by sustained energy toward one project until it has arrived at its final format. This is what I am relearning.

I was good at it before. Then I picked up my phone.

Where was I? So yeah. Poppies. There is a metaphor in there somewhere. Oh yeah, poppies represent REMEMBERING.

I forgot.

But that's my practice lately. Sustained attention toward a thing. Remembering to complete.

It's all so obvious now.

My friend Pete once told me this: "Let the seeds fall where they may. Let God take care of the rest."

I suppose that's the lesson these days. Scattered seeds. Scattered projects. Scattered mind. If you're feeling the same, know that there is a BECOMING of something on the horizon. Something is about to bloom.