Purple Grass

I’ve been mulling over a couple of quotes today. “The grass is greener on the other side” versus “The grass is greener where you water it.” I have to say that I’m going to go with quote number two. When I think of the first one I picture someone standing out in a patchy yard of brown grass, peering over the fence of a neighbor’s property, taking in the green turf, the new vehicle, the big shiny grill; the man on the other side seems to have it all. Or does he?

What if someone were to say, “Well, no matter how much I water my grass, it will always be brown,” or “what if all I have is rocks, or sand?” That’s when you bring in potted plants and hanging baskets, and design a rock garden and put in a Koi pond. Let’s go a step further. If you do have grass, who says it has to be green? I think I’d rather have purple grass, and blue trees with red leaves, and fish that are all the colors of the rainbow. Why not challenge ourselves to push past limited thinking and embrace the possibilities that can open up before us when we see things differently?

It is so easy to see things through a one dimensional lens, and to get so hung up on what is happening in the present that we can’t see past it to the other side. It is in those moments when we can feel lost. But what would happen if time could stand still and we could take a moment to see things from a different view; the view of the bigger picture. To see the result of our hard work, to look onto the outcome of our labor, to see the harvest from the seeds that we sow? It is all too easy to feel swallowed by the details, and I say that because I do it all too often myself.

If a chef was making a gourmet cake and pulled out all the ingredients, then just stood staring at the bag of flour, seeing only that one ingredient, there would never be a cake. He envisions the completed work, the purpose behind the effort, and mixes and stirs, adding what is needed, seeing that each step will lead to the end design, and the reward that will come from all the effort.

In the same way, an architect does not stand and just stare at a pile of building materials, blueprint in hand, only seeing one box of nails or only focusing on one board. He looks beyond the moment when the shovel first breaks ground, and envisions the building that will rise with each hammer stroke, and become stronger with each driven nail; established brick by brick, steel beam by steel beam - knowing that every drop of sweat will translate into progress.

I recall a time over seven years ago when my husband and I moved to a new city to make a better life and start fresh and search for opportunity. We barely knew anyone and didn’t have a clue what we were doing. A lot of people thought we were crazy for leaving a nice apartment in a city where we knew so many people and everything was familiar and predictable, to move to a place where we were strangers with no real game plan except to follow our desire for a better life. We hardly had any money, and I didn’t know what I was doing or how it would turn out. We lived in a ratty cheap apartment where the sink overflowed when the washing machine drained, the dryer outlet was closed off so lint blew everywhere and condensation gathered on the walls when we dried clothes, and there was such a large gap under the sliding glass door that we had to tape it closed to prevent bugs and rain from getting inside. I would see other people my age who lived just down the road driving expensive new vehicles, and see people out shopping, carrying designer handbags and looking like they had figured something out that I hadn’t. I felt so small, so insignificant. But they didn’t have it figured out. I just didn’t know it yet.

One day not long after moving, I was driving our older car home after buying a few grocery items; it started running hot and I was advised to park and pour water into the radiator to keep it cool. I pulled over at a gas station. As you can imagine, when I unscrewed the cap, scalding hot water shot out and burned my leg through my jeans as I stood in the parking lot. I was angry, in pain, and humiliated as tears almost as hot as that radiator water formed in my eyes. Thoughts raced through my head; “what were we thinking coming here? Most everyone thinks we are crazy; what am I doing???” After making it home, I remember sitting on the floor that night with my head against the wall and crying, with nothing but a small thin triangle of light cast across the floor from the partially open door of the bathroom, that bathroom with the overflowing sink. Part of me wanted to throw in the towel, call it quits, admit defeat, like a runner yearning to give in to utter exhaustion after trudging uphill looking for the top, but instead seeing nothing but rocks and a seemingly endless road, and feeling trapped in suspended moments of time as the muscles scream and the lungs search for air. But another part of me deep within said “be strong.” It was in this moment, sitting in that shadowed room, that I had to make a choice.

I am relieved to say that I chose to be stronger. After a lot of hard work and sweat and tears, we started to carve a life in uncharted territory and were eventually able to move into a better living situation. I will never regret putting on my boots and getting out there and seeing what was possible. I had so much to learn, so much I did not yet understand about myself and who I was and who I wanted to be, but in that moment in the shadowy night all those years ago, the seeds of change were planted.

Moving to this city changed my life. If someone had tried to tell me seven years ago what I know now, I wouldn’t have believed them, and if I knew what would be seven years from today I would be equally befuddled. There is something about the not knowing that is maddening and exhilarating at the same time, but it compels me to keep forging ahead and doing my best, so that I can find out what is around the next bend, and the next, keeping my running shoes on as I go and trying to stay alert. I don’t have all the answers. I would truly be a foolish person if I assumed that I did. I screw up, I succeed, and back around again and again – it’s all a part of the journey. And somewhere along the way the roughness starts to be smoothed away and we find ourselves beginning to see beauty emerge from deep within, and feel strength growing, until we are like hammered bronze or clay made stronger in the kiln.

We are no longer small children who have no control over our circumstances. Courage is a choice. We forge ahead because something greater drives us. We are not bound by the invisible lines of expectation unless we allow ourselves to be. New paths are never discovered by doing nothing; we carve a path with resolve and sweat and laughter and tears. We have all been challenged by the journey, and will be challenged again and again as we navigate through life. Just as a runner grows stronger with each stride, and every heart beat pumps blood through the body, and every drop of sweat cools the skin, so every bit of hard work means something. Every morning that we choose to get out of bed and try again, every time we walk into our place of work or create something new, we are building, brick by brick, what will become the best version of ourselves, and growing the seeds that will make us fiercely beautiful, like purple grass, or blue trees, blending into all the colors of the rainbow.