It’s Thursday. And I’m happy to settle into my Thanksgiving Chair tonight.
I’m thankful for quite a lot–especially for being back home this Thursday. But I’m also grateful for the new things I see on the road. Like growing things.
Okay–my thumb is not green. The only house plants that have survived our home are the lucky bamboo. I’m pretty sure they’re only alive because of their fortunate name. And even though I love to eat local, fresh goodies, the idea of me tending to my own garden is quite contrary.
Still. I’ve always been a bit smitten with growing things. The needles of green that shove through cracks in concrete. The way wildflower seeds sprout from a cup of wet dirt on the kitchen counter, wispy as wrist hairs. Kudzu, dense as the ocean, climbing, choking anything in its way.
Growing things are easy to miss—just a blur as our hours scurry on.
I mean, who makes you stop to stare at trees? A shaman in Peru made me once. And my elementary school ALERT teacher, Dr. M., taught an entire unit on trees. We even had to hug one and sing to it. I’m so not kidding.
I’m not a tree hugger (that was a one-time thing), but I love the plants, the free, uncultivated, wild plants, that bloom with Fibonacci perfection.
And I love when nature—in the hands of imaginative humans—becomes arboreal art. So, I wanted to share a parade of pretty growing things I’m grateful I got to see in California last week. And it starts with these unruly beauties.
What about you? What are you thankful for today? Did you notice anything you usually don’t?
my ft.notes 
Love all the pics!
LYMI.
Several years ago, when Alaura was in high school, she had a summer homework project for an upcoming Human Geography class. It required her to pick a specific area of town and either bike ride or walk through the neighborhoods and document the signs of life that might indicate the way of life in that community. We chose to take a bike ride on the island. After we stopped at the Chamber of Commerce to get some band-aids to patch up the big toe that Cole broke wide open from falling off his bike, we got started down the roads of this little island community. One of the things that really stuck in my mind was how old the concrete bus stop benches were. It made me think of all the people from the past 50 years that have sat on those benches. What were they wearing? What kind of problems were on their minds? We looked at a lot of things that day that we have passed 100 times on the way to the beach, but never really “saw”. It changed our perspective when we really thought about what we were seeing! I don’t know about Alaura, but it was my most favorite summer project!
This sounds like something we’re definitely going to do–homework or not. 🙂 Thanks so much for sharing.