 |
|
|
|
|
Harvest yields more than just a crop
By Moryt Milo
For the last five days I have been harvesting lavender. My skin and hair carry its scent. My clothes are perfumed in its oils. And, my sense of smell has been bombarded with its fragrance.
Just yesterday, as I rested my bare feet on a discarded pile of stalks, while methodically bundling another, my daughter walked out and said, "Wow, mom you really smell like lavender!"
"Really?" I said, realizing that I'd been breathing in the stuff for so long that I couldn't smell a thing.
"Oh yeah, it's strong. But you smell really good," she said.
I hadn't considered how entwined I'd become with the crop I was harvesting. But the thought felt rather comforting.
Now my garage smells like a giant drying factory for lavender potpourri, cloaked in bundle after bundle of purple wonder.
I'm amazed at how one plant (that's all we are talking about) can provide such an abundant crop. And truth be told, I haven't even made a dent in that bush! Eventually what I haven't picked will be cut and sent to perfume my yard waste bin.
This bush, which I planted around the time we moved here, almost ten years ago, was not much to look at early on. Now it sits regally in the front yard and sends out a crown of purple stalks that overwhelms everything around it with its size and color. And I can't even take any credit for its health. I think I just lucked out and planted it in the right spot. But that doesn't make me appreciate it any less.
As I was snipping, bundling and drying, it occurred to me that the history of this plant was similar to my own.
For starters, there's luck. I bought my house and moved onto a block with great neighbors. I was lucky enough to pick the right street in the right town where my neighbors became my friends, where there were kids similar in age to my own, and where no one hesitated to call someone else for help at a moment's notice.
As with my lavender plant, I can't take credit for my location. It was just a chance decision that turned out to be right. And like the lavender that started small and unassuming, things for me were quiet at first, too. Unfamiliar with the town, it took time for me to find my roots in the community, to develop a sense of comfort and security with my surroundings. As with my lavender it was the years that added depth, allowing things to become established.
And it was the little things that helped along way. Such as the time I left my infant safety trap on a shopping cart and one of the grocery store baggers, knowing where I lived, pulled up to my house and dropped it off. Or the time I managed to leave all my ID and debit cards at home and the cashier said, "Just go home and get what you need. I'll keep your things over here until you come back."
Suddenly before I knew it, three years, five years, ten years had gone by. And I, like my lavender, had found a home that allowed me to grow stronger and fuller with each year.
My plant, which for some odd reason blooms at the beginning and end of summer, (it's only suppose to bloom once) has become a wonderful constant. A perfect example of nature's unpretentious way of saying this is exactly how it should be.
I think there is a lesson in this simplicity, in the lavender's annual cycle of bursting forth and celebrating life, in its willingness to sit contentedly on the front lawn for most of the year and then display its joy.
And suddenly I understood all this. It was an understanding that came about by drowning in the essence of the lavender's scent. It was the lavender showing me how the essence of life can smell so sweetly. But how it's up to each one of us to take the time to breathe it in and appreciate it fully.
|
|
|
|
Campbell, California
