cosmicomedy: WEEDY THOUGHTS
by lavinia plonka

A popular gardening cliché states that weeds are flowers growing in the wrong place. Hah! You tell me where crab grass belongs. At least I think it’s crab grass. It appears along the borders of my forlorn plastic fence that’s supposed to keep critters out, straddling the edge, its roots cleverly entwined in the fence’s bottom. I start out digging carefully along the entire clump, at first resignedly going in and out of the garden; plunge, pry, plunge, pry. It fights back, I grab and pull, I dig my indignant gloves into the unyielding earth, I heave, I curse, it breaks free, throwing me in a shower of dirt onto my carefully planted broccoli seedlings and sits triumphantly, like some alien parasite, upon my muddied chest. As we stare each other down, the crab grass and I, an epiphany occurs. Instead of the “windmills of my mind”, I see my churning thoughts are sometimes the crabgrass of my mind.

I often find myself quite literally lost in an imagined conversation. It may have sprung out of a recent argument, where I endlessly replay the dialogue in different variations. Or instead of concentrating on chopping the vegetables, I’m angsting about whether I should park my car in the center of downtown and walk from one appointment to another, or move the car since the two appointments are in different ends of downtown. Which would be fine except the appointments are 3 days from now, and what if it rains, do I have the umbrella still sitting underneath the seat of my car, or did I put it in the closet, at which point, for no apparent reason, I’m singing “Raindrops keep falling on my head…”

Then I go out to the garden. I stare in disbelief at the flourishing combination of honeysuckle, bindweed and dandelion completely encircling my fragile tomato seedlings. “How dare you, rogues? Like thieves in the night, or a guerrilla army, you dare to invade my garden, MY TERRITORY? Arrrgh! Begone!” I pull them, hoe them, cover them in straw mulch, plant cover crops that then become as invasive as the weeds. I talk to them, cajole them, and still they come back, persistent, taunting, relentless – like the jungle of thoughts that whirl in the garden of my mind.

Monkey mind, the Buddhists call it. I’m calling it weedy mind. An imaginary conversation with a difficult student leads to a memory of a professor I had in college which brings up a forgotten Crosby, Stills and Nash song that jangles at the back of my head, “If you can’t be, with the one you love, love the one you’re with….doo, doo, doo, do, do, do, do.”

Not again! Why can’t I have Mozart in the back of my head? Next thing you know it’ll be the Barney theme song. Stop! I’m supposed to be grading papers! Of course, the harder I try to tear at this weedy thought, the more firmly it entrenches itself, till I find it sitting on my chest and grinning at me, now saying, “You thought you were hot stuff in college didn’t you? Hah!”

I’m constantly trying to suppress or tear out weeds of fear, anger, daydreaming so that the real garden of my mind can flourish. But, what am I trying to cultivate? Something fragile, delicate, needing constant nurturing is trying to grow in my consciousness. Perhaps it is presence of mind, or clarity. Some would call it Attention, an awareness that brings a sense of quiet, of being here now. However, unlike the hardier flowers, like Snap Decision Making, Good Vocabulary or Wit, Quiet can be choked by weedy thoughts in a split second.

So are these invading species, these rogue thoughts, really just flowers in the wrong place? If I could notice them when they’re seedlings instead of when their roots are already wrapped around my precarious attention, perhaps I could transplant some - to the butterfly garden, the wildflower garden, the medicinal herb garden. These errant blooms crowding out my fragile will to grow can’t just be angrily torn out or covered with mind numbing mulch. They drop their seeds. Portions of the root regenerate to re-appear in even greater force. No, each one must be heard and acknowledged.

As long as I lose myself in that weed patch, I am agitated and learn nothing. But if I carefully dig up Insecure Thoughts and place it in a corner of the garden alongside Difficult Childhood Memories, that irascible plant called Jealousy and other similar stinging herbs, I can brew a bracing tea of self revelation. And I’ve learned that it doesn’t help to try to squelch Anxiety - about parking, health, anything. It will only pop up somewhere else, in force. But carefully pruning the thousands of seedlings surrounding that Anxiety may eventually result in a glorious blossom of self awareness in my psychic garden.

I stare at the stupendous pile of crabgrass I have liberated from the clutches of the earth. I ponder my cosmic metaphor. Crabgrass is those relentless, grasping thoughts that paralyze my creativity, stop my inner growth, refuse to yield or move. Hmm, where does it belong? I pile the load into my wheelbarrow and take the crabgrass to its new home – the compost bin.

When not planting weeds, Lavinia helps others cultivate greater freedom and spontaneity in their movement and their lives through The Feldenkrais Method®. You can get more information or contact her at laviniaplonka.com