Mary, Mary Quite Contrary

I think a lot about gardens.  I don't have the space for one in my complex, so I take a short ride to Forrest Park and enjoy the garden space.  In the summer, I go to the zoo and picnic in the gardens.  It is absolutely freeing.  St. Louis is one of the most fantastic spots for flower searching when the season is warm.  Every now and then, I see a city worker making sure the grounds stay gorgeous.  As a matter of fact, they work really hard mowing and pruning and picking up the trash.  I wondered if they ever brown bagged a lunch and sat down by the botanical gardens to simply enjoy the beauty.  I realized that you can work all day to keep it beautiful, but then not enjoy it.  That is what I think of when I think of a family.  Family is notorious for becoming the undoing of the very network they want to build.  I believe it is because they focus on the weeds so much, they can't see the beauty in what is happening that is good.  I get on the phone with my cousins and all I hear is how they have ill treated each other.  I, on the other hand, only want to remember the good old days.  We don't have to rehearse where the thorns were, or that the cherry tree died.  Bad things will define themselves, we don't need to help it.  Dry patches will never heal if we keep picking at it and some parts of the garden simply need another season.  It will just take time.  Now, next time you go to the family reunion, remember to enjoy your family and not just rehearse and nurse old wounds.