Motivational Monday

WHATEVER OUR DREAMS, IDEAS, OR PROJECTS,

WE PLANT A SEED, NURTURE IT - AND THEN

REAP THE FRUITS OF OUR LABORS.

(Oprah Winfrey)

I grew up in the city. I played out on the front stoop or in the driveway. We didn't have a backyard - we had a patch of dirt bordered on one side by the neighbor's fence and on the  other side by our garage. 

And yet, my Dad and my Pop Pop managed to grow a garden. I remember string beans. I remember tomatoes. But my favorite "crop" was the sunflowers. Those plants grew like they'd been waiting their whole lives for their seeds to be put into that Brooklyn dirt. Sturdy green stems stretched high above the fence and the garage. Their leaves reached out to each other, to my sister and me, offering shade and shadow. Their faces tilted up toward the sun, basking in the warmth. Air ruffled their petals and set the flowers to swaying and dipping and dancing, even as their roots held them solidly, happily in place.   

Now, even though I can barely keep an artificial plant going, I still tend a garden, one with crops important to me. I plant the seeds of my dreams, my goals, my wishes, my plans. I dig and I water, I nurture and I wait. I think back to that patch of dirt, to those different seeds in that rough soil, and to the strength and the beauty that not only grew but thrived in that unexpected place. And I keep the faith. I believe.