Greenhouse

This little pepper, it holds a piece of me. There’s something primitive about caring for a garden. Us, as humans, I believe we forget the way we use to be. Today we live in a world on the go, money being one of our biggest motivations. Taking a step back, appreciating the small things that life can offer to get a feeling of fulfillment. This twelve by twelve sunny heat box is my personal escape. It maybe be 100 degrees but as the sweat rolls down my face I feel sensational satisfaction. It has all been a learning curve. I’ve watched plants die in this box, and I’ve watched plants come to life in this box. This is how I keep my sanity. When they feel withered, I too can keep that same way. I need to be revived. I need to feel alive. Which means paying attention and putting in time. Getting my hands into the dirt and working on myself. Everything is quite except the birds and the bees, and my thoughts. Which need to be sorted out from time to time like an overcrowded, unorganized filing cabinet. We all need a vice that helps us find our sanity. Learning that vice can be trial and error. It can feel overwhelming and frustrating. But it’s finding that slice of paradise, of peace with yourself and the pace of the world we have set.

Why is it that we do this to ourselves? We push ourselves to the peak of exhaustion. Coming home feeling like we poured out a part of our soul for someone else to benefit. And it’s hard to complain about because most of us are all in the boat. The 9 to 5 grind, the weekend warrior, Sunday being a day of freedom from the chains of the work week. But sometimes having a lazy Sunday isn’t enough. Having a vice to help your mind hit reset at the end of the day, that is truly therapeutic. That is why it’s so important for us to find our daily vice. Something to take the days energy and expel it from our fingertips into something. Mold that energy into clay, thread that energy into that needle, dig that energy into the dirt that will grow something beautiful. If we do not we will find another way to get rid of that energy and it is not always positive. It can stay inside of us a fester into something toxic. The energy within our body’s is a powerful thing, and we need to know how to better control it now more than ever. In today’s world we have completely different fears, emotions, stresses to overcome than we did 100 years ago.

So this little pepper, it does so much more than feed me. It’s beyond a hobby but a way for me to exchange my energy at the end of the day into a positive. The irritations of the day seem to just drift their way out of my fingertips and into this soil. To put my phone down and let the soil pack onto my hands because this is what needs my full attention now. There is no looking at emails, there is no comparing myself to others on the internet, there is no news to get emotionally lost in. This is a time to focus on myself and clear my mind. This is a time to take emotions from the day that I shoved into a filing cabinet with no concern and organize them so I do not carry that with me to bed. The emotions of the day stay in the soil and I get to go to bed peaceful tonight. I will awaken, rested and restarted.