Category: write hard

It was only last year when he threatened to chop it down. Looking at me across the washing line, as I hung work and school uniforms out to dry “It’s producing no fruit!” It was a matter of fact.

I am the plant rescue-er in our relationship. We even have a designated part of the garden called the plant hospital. A location that we walk past every morning as we enter our days, reminding us to water the plants that are most susceptible in our arid soil.

I looked through the wet clothes hanging on the line, with eyes that begged him not to rip out the tree. And a little smile awaiting my response ” Just one more year love.”

“It’s one of those non-fruiting trees I’m sure of it,” he said with frustration. And I just sighed at the sheer tenacity of trying to grow anything in a garden with a family and big life.

Lately, I have been a little obsessed with seeds. I seem to see them everywhere. On the floor when I walk the path to the beach, in the shops up on the shelf and over the fence on the floor of my friend’s house. They are small, but the capacity for them to grow into shady trees, keep drawing me back to the beauty of slow.

We couldn’t afford an overseas honeymoon when we got married. In hindsight, we didn’t need one, just a room with a big bed and a beautiful vista. We laugh often about the fact that our car door broke, the week of our honeymoon and we had to climb across the gear stick each time we got in and out of the car. Some days lately we have forgotten what it was like to just have one car with a broken door.

I think God has a brilliant sense of humour and imperfection often makes for the best of stories. We ended up down south from where we live, visiting wineries with that wonky door. No fancy cars or taxi’s for our arrival, just two people climbing out the passenger door.

At one of those wineries, we found a half wooden barrel and we decided to buy it to plant a tree as a memento of our honeymoon. We got home and decided on a lime tree (my man quite likes a drop of Mexican brew).

Eight years ago we planted that lime tree in that wooden barrel, it has survived two children, two houses and many bbq’s alongside. It even survived the wooden barrel that fell apart last spring and we planted that non- fruiting lime tree in the ground, hoping it would at last produce.

Then last week eight and a half years after we planted that tree I saw hiding in the flourish of green leaves, five or six or maybe ten little limes on our tree. I couldn’t wait for my husband to come home and I walked him around to see.

He looked at me and smiled with his eyebrows lifting and said quietly “Lucky I didn’t rip it out last spring hey?” And I didn’t say anything, just marvelled at the beauty of the very simple things.

I think we have lost the art of patience, in a society so intent on producing. Since the beginning of July, I have had some time off social media and it has been the best thing I have done all year. It is hard not to be drawn back to it, but the resting of the ground in my heart has needed some time to realign. L

“But the seed in the good soil, these are the ones who have heard the word in an honest and good heart, and hold it fast, and bear fruit with perseverance.”

Luke 8: 15

I often spend a lot of time thinking about the future. Thinking about my children, my house, the contribution of my life. It is something that I have always enjoyed spending my procrastinating, in-between moments doing.

It is in these times though that I forget that the seeds I am planting today, will bear my fruit in my tomorrow. Holding fast to what is good, changing my mindsets to ones of servanthood and humility. Finding ways to surrender in the ever present tide of self obsession.

What seeds are you sowing for harvest in your future?

Growth

Pain

Cutting off

Fertiliser

Sun

Water

These very simple principles found in the earth of our gardens, go against the success mantras of our day.

I have been reminding myself lately, to reset, to read simple wisdom and to begin again. Creating great soil for the new growth awaiting and surrendering to the beauty of a simple life.

“The engineers of the future will be the poets”

Terrance McKenna

I do wonder what is the condition of our poets soil?

Through the night, the wind kept waking me as a storm swept past the bay. I tossed and turned, falling asleep and then another bang, shudder and howl. I wondered if the rain would leak under the front door, soaking our jarrah floorboards. Worry came knocking around 2 am that the flu that has been hanging in the shadows of my home would settle in to stay.

I stood at the sink today and saw that the passionfruit plant that had taken months to climb up slowly covering the unfinished fence had died, when nobody was looking. I picked up the tea towel off my oven and I stopped mid sentence and remembered her house.

This year we packed up my Grandmothers house, after many decades of living close by and she went reluctantly to a nursing home. Her things divided between family members and honestly, I wasn’t that interested in her belongings, I’d prefer to hold her hand. A box of things, however, were placed on the back seat of my car and my favourite overall the antiques, jewellery and letters were her old linen tea towels.

Most of them antiques in their own right. But each time I hold them, I think of the Carrot Cakes she would bake and the Christmas cookies that no one has managed yet to replicate. My grandmother is old farm stock and I’m sure these pieces of cloth have been held whilst she watched the news on days when history was smashed open and also the days when baked fish was on the menu for dinner.

Story keepers, of the hands that washed them. Story seekers of hearts questioning as they went about daily life with a menial task. Story capsules of the people calling to chat with her on the phone and gossip about that irritating neighbour.

There are moments of our ordinary days, that no one will ever see. Times when words become powerful carriers of emotion and change. When we realise that the stories laden in the processing of our days are the economy of legacy and hope.

Lately, I have been really off Instagram, social media and the hungry machine of content creation. I have been reminding myself of the power and beauty of creativity and story to leave a legacy that remains.

We are the story keepers. We are the story shapers. We are the story holders.

Robyn McKee says it this way:

“Storytelling is the most powerful way to put ideas into the world today.”

Robyn McKee

If you look across history, the main keeper of human wisdom and tenacity has been recorded through story. I strongly believe that somebody needs your story. The highs, the lows, the in-between and the not enough yet.

As we begin to find ways to allow writing to heal, when we show up to our blank pages and work through our stories to find clarity, hope and courage God brings strength in these places.

Human beings are shaped by stories.

We find encouragement through stories.

We leave lessons for those coming behind with stories.

We were born into a story from the narrative of our parents.

We live in the story that we are telling ourselves.

There is a story in the Bible that talks about legacy in the midst of our current story and narrative. Joel was an amazing scholar and prophet, a man of wisdom to his local community. He wrote this;

“Tell it to your children, and let your children tell it to their children, and their children to the next generation”

Joel 1: 3

I wonder what stories will be told to our children’s children about the tone and tenure of our current novel in history. This symphony of peace and chaos, an era of change and technology, ignorance and platforms.

What lessons are we teaching and showing, changing and leaving?

We are the story keepers, the culture changers and the life legacy leavers. As we dig deep into our places of freedom and hope, we unveil the beauty of discovering and wisdom for those who sit alongside. Further more, we leave a trail of inspiration for those who follow behind us.

Write hard, my creative friend. Unveil the promises, lean into the new, discover your voice and allow liberty to set the captives of our hearts free.

If you would like to help to write hard, here is my online course. Four sessions designed to encourage you in finding, developing and expressing your story. $59 delivers straight to your inbox. If you’d like a simple download tool as a process to help you answer all the questions about publishing and writing. I developed this tool for $9.95 just for you. Somebody Needs Your Story.