Plant your seeds, wide and far.
Let the rain come.
Watch the magic happen.
I have spent the last 2+ years taking care of my family and friends. From Pandemic mental health, to emergency surgery recovery, to navigating Middle School, to writing cookbooks, I have taken care of my family and friends.
I have also spent a significant amount of time thinking, “So, what is next?”
Often, the next was about immediate needs – dinner, forms that needed signing, conversations with clients, taking a shower, or sleeping. And every now and then, the bigger “what next” popped up.
Much like I talk about in my cookbooks, we plant seeds, and then we wait. Sometimes they grow right away, sometimes they slowly grow and never really become mature plants, and sometimes we don’t see growth and are surprised a season, or a year, or even two later when we see those seeds are now grown-up plants ready for harvest.
I think of myself as someone who scatters seeds everywhere I go. They are the quick conversations with people I run into, the long talks in the car with teenagers during carpool, and the deliberate seeds I plant in my professional and personal space. Everywhere, I scatter what I can, and hope the soil is rich.
In my personal life, I have done work on preparing that soil, and making sure the conditions are right for things to grow, and still, the seeds that have taken hold are not necessarily the ones I thought would grow. But they are the plants that I can learn from, and harvest, and share with those around me.
So, what is next? In the grand scheme, I do not know. But in the soil in front of me, I am a mom, a wife, a daughter, a sister, and a friend. I am someone who functions best when I eat good food, spend time in The Nature, exercise, laugh, and sleep. I know that the best way to create change is to work with what is in my garden (both actual garden and metaphysical garden). I know that every seed I plant creates the potential for a new future, new growth, and new harvests.
Hope is hard to come by these days, unless you find the seeds… unless you can see the tiny shoots popping up between the cracks… unless you slow down enough to watch a seed turn into a mighty tree in a forest where nothing exists but our greatest potential.
In the coming days, weeks, months, and years, I will be sharing more of the work I have been doing. There are so many ways you all can help me plant seeds, and water them, and make sure the soil is right. As a collective, we have so much power, when we each step up and say, “I too, can do the work.”
In the meantime, take a shower, eat some good food, laugh, and sleep. Sometimes growth and hope show up in the most unexpected ways from the most unexpected actions.
