Report From PIA – January 9
I received two emails that came together in my garden today. The first, from my friend Marcia, said, “I know that you’re very busy (from your blog) so I insist on a very brief answer, only at your convenience.”
When I got this note I thought, “If everyone blogged every day, and wrote about what was going on in his or her life, we’d all seem very busy!” I’m not sure that I’m busier than anyone else, but I am willing to write about everything that I’m involved in.
The second email was from Sal, and it read, “Be the kind of woman that when your feet hit the ground each morning, the devil says, ‘Oh Crap, she’s up!’” I loved this part of Sal’s forwarded mail, although I disliked the chain-mail-guilt part about forwarding it on to 9 other women so that something good will happen to you. I’ve always hated that aspect of chain letters, and am unhappy that the “do this or you won’t have anything positive” message has continued from snail mail into email. Isn’t it enough to send something amusing and constructive to one person?
Chain letter guilt aside, here’s how these two come together for me. If we live life fully, so that the devil curses when we’re up and running, we will indeed be busy, and this is a good thing.
Geroge Bernard Shaw wrote, “This is the true joy in life, being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one. Being thoroughly used up and worn out before you are thrown on the scrap heap. Being a force of nature instead of a feverish, selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy.”
In and out of the garden, I want to be used for a mighty purpose, and I’ll be busy making sure that this happens.
Today I was busy choosing images for future talks. This picture of a stone building done by Lew French, a stone artist on Martha's Vineyard, is for a talk called "The Top Twenty-Five" that I'm presenting at the Cape Cod Horticultural Conference, in Hyannis, MA on April 17th.
