Trade-Offs (Joe)

"What you've done becomes the judge of what you're going to do - especially in other people's minds. When you're traveling, you are what you are right there and then. People don't have your past to hold against you. No yesterdays on the road." [William Least Heat Moon, Blue Highways]

We had dinner last night at the home of some friends. After the Trader Joe's cheese and salami appetizer ("Take this away or I'll finish it!"), after the caprese salad, after the grilled snapper, when the awkwardness of reconnecting had passed and the fuzziness of two glasses of moscato had taken hold, our hosts insisted that we tour their garden.

As we walked up the steps behind the house, narrow concrete winding two tiers up, she recounted the trials of the previous growing season, the health of the plants couched in time relative to their standing during some heady personal and relationship strife-- The markers we give our life.

We walked up more stairs to the second tier, tried to imagine the overgrowth of berry vines she described. I tried to put myself in her shoes, her partner's, their kneepads, digging out vine by vine, dirt, sweat, rain, earth, the mineral-plant mix of smells, the dog shoving his nose in, mindful that their attention was turned elsewhere. They are, literally, rooted there, in that garden.
I turned toward the fading sun, felt myself swallowed by the view over the Northwest Portland hills, feeling rather than seeing Mount Hood, awed and scared and buzzing with excitement.

Because tonight was learning about trade-offs, and realizing that Doing A 180° meant that though there would be yesterdays, they wouldn't stretch back far enough for the garden to survive. In our world, we'd be gone to another experience, leaving the vine-pulling and the nurturing and cooing over "how well the tomatoes recovered" to The Next Tenant.

If I've not embraced the idea of where to root my garden, then maybe that's exactly what this journey is all about. Whether we end up moving once, twice, 10 or 12 times, or perhaps ultimately (and we must admit this as a possibility), not at all, part of the process is nights like this, asking the question:

What does who I am have to do with where I am?