We found an Eastern Banjo frog in the garden today. Hubby had been harvesting the potatoes when he came across this little guy living in the damp mulch. Getting a photo was less important to us than protecting his home, so I have borrowed this one from online.
Frogs in the garden are, to me, the definition of success. I have a deep sense of satisfaction knowing that my backyard productivity is providing a habitat for native creatures while also producing food for us.
It is almost miraculous the way that a plant takes nutrients from the soil and converts it into something tasty to eat. Each time I pick beans for dinner, put rhubarb on my porridge, or harvest another handful of blackberries, I am amazed that I am “eating dirt”.
While I am literally ‘grounded’ when I turn over the soil for planting seeds, when I tend to new shoots, and when I pull weeds, it is far more than that.
Being grounded is finding that thing that brings you a sense of being alive.
When was the last time you thought about how good it is to live?
What brings you that sense of being alive? For some people, it is money or fame or notoriety. And, therefore, when they aren’t celebrities, they feel their lives aren’t meaningful.
Meaning is found in the smallest of things.
I’m not kidding you.
Money, fame, or notoriety will fail you every time. If your sense of purpose comes from the attention of others, their worship, or deference to you, you will find yourself lost at sea. Reputations come and go. Achievement, while fuelled by personal effort, often includes factors outside of our control. Factors that require perseverance and hard work but are, nonetheless, outside of our control. I can influence my reputation but if someone takes against me, I am limited in the way I can influence the damage they do.
Your sense of living needs to be founded on something other than the shifting sand of opinion.
Today, I had a moment of living life—another publisher rejected my poetry collection.
It would be easy to be bitter and blame an unknown face for their judgment of my clearly excellent work. Publishing is an industry and it can be removed and clinical. But not all of the time. Today’s ‘no’ contained a moment of affirmation. Even though I was disappointed—naturally—I had the opportunity to connect with a real person, to value them, and to understand the publishing industry a little better. I had the opportunity to rise above myself and show kindness and understanding.
Treating people well is important to me. I feel grounded in myself when I have done this. Of course, I am no saint and I do have boundaries, but I hope to honour my boundaries in ways that are not cruel towards others. Firmness isn’t the same as bad behaviour.
There are many things that ground us, that give us a sense of the wonder of life, and that fill us with meaning. Frustration, annoyance, incessant complaining, all stem from our forgetting. Forgetting to notice the sun setting, the dragonfly on her way, the breeze on our face. Forgetting to act in ways that honour our core values, to see others as worthy and to show kindness.
It’s okay to feel disappointed (and to comfort yourself with chocolate spread eaten straight from the jar).
It’s not okay to blame someone else for what we should take responsibility for. I know why this publisher said no—I am not yet known in the field I want to be a part of. I need to keep working on getting my poems into journals and getting known by my literary tribe. This isn’t the publisher’s responsibility. She needs to sell books, and known poets sell (the few poetry books that are actually sold).
Because we found a frog, because these plants take nutrients from the ground and make them into things we can eat, because we picked the one ripe strawberry and shared it between us, I am able to see that the best living often happens outside of me.
I feel the most alive when I am grounded in a moment of noticing. It reminds me that I am part of something and that I have a responsibility to contribute.
This Writer's Life 