Bloom Where You're Planted

I like this gentle maxim, to bloom where you're planted. This is a good reminder for me, especially since following it can be challenging at times. For the past two weeks, I have been trying to bloom in this way by finding the "curves and corners" in this house that I can love. And, I must say, that I feel more settled, more at peace here than I did before. Even though we are still trying to sell it, I am taking more pride in this house, doing the work to make it as sound and comfortable as we can while we are still here.

I have made similar efforts with this city even, a fact of which I was reminded recently when I met yet another person who said that Jacksonville doesn't offer anything that could keep her here. She believes, like so many others I've spoken with, that this town is like an awkward adolescent that doesn't know what it wants to be when it grows up, that it is lacking leadership and a clear vision for its future. L. and I have felt this way about the city, too, and we have watched a steady stream of our friends and compatriots drift away to cities that have already ripened into their full glow and offer much more in the way of cultural sustenance and progressive politics. We are still here, in part because we wonder what we might be able to build here; we wonder how we might be part of a small movement to make this city somewhere we really feel pleased to be living.

So we remind ourselves to bloom where we are planted. It is this acceptance of right here, right now, that allows us to really flourish where we are. Conversely, it can also bring the wind that will transplant us to the next garden where we are supposed to root ourselves and grow.