Tuesday, January 20, 2009

Sprouting

They say a rolling stone gathers no moss. Well, I have stopped rolling recently and I'm learning how to grow moss again. I am learning that this kind of moss does not grow in sunlight; it grows while being in the gaze of the same people day in and day out. It grows in being a consistent presence in someone's life. I feel this soft green covering growing when a consistent joke crops up among my circle of friends. I feel it pushing up through my pores when one of them accidentally offends, or critiques me. I feel it spreading out, demanding room, when I have to find it in my heart to forgive them, and when I must ask their forgiveness.
This moss grows in worry, new worries for me, like job security, failure, and faith. I must choose wisely these days and live morally. In this lifestyle I must firmly uphold who I believe I am. No more searching. I must make decisions I can defend and stand by. I acquire friends and acquaintances carefully. I can no longer shed this moss in the wind of a speedy train. I cannot smother it in the sterile recycled air of an airplane. It grows fresh and firm in the humid, nurturing air of San Francisco.
I never ran from the moss, or feared its accumulation. Even in my travels it grew in small shallow patches nurtured by my family and a few close friends. I traveled simply because I was curious about what life as a rolling stone felt like. And as my cycle of curiosity usually goes, once I mastered life as a roller and lost almost all recollection of the stationary life...I longed for the opposite, and my curiosity lead me down the next path, which is stayin' put for awhile to see what I can see, and learn what this life has to teach me. The learning curve is steep thus far, but that’s how a new lesson always begins...

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