Love Matters

I look at this photo a lot.

It is the background on my iPad—my go-to techno device—and is just one more reason to reach for a screen. It is more than the aesthetics of the shot.

I love this little man—no one prepares you for the absolute devotion grandchildren elicit—and was privileged with shushing him to sleep. This is a picture of my heart filling up. When I look at it, I can feel the weight of him in my arms, and the wriggling and snuffling that is a sleeping babe.

He continues to grow and is beginning to smile and gurgle and coo. He commands our attention and delight. No doubt I will write about him, and about all of the others that will hopefully come along in their time, over and over.

How can I not? I am completely taken by what it means to love.

I always knew I would love my own children. Even as a child, I anticipated just how much I would adore my own. I did. And I do.

But I had no idea, no inkling, that a grandchild, not technically “mine”—I am not the one providing essential care—would take away my breath the way this little man does. So I look at this photo over and over.

Since reading I Capture the Castle when eleven years old, I have pictured myself as Cassandra sitting on the draining board in an ancient kitchen, capturing the life around me, my life. I have kept a journal since that time. Nothing significant or worthy of digging out of storage, rather, years of angst and agony and growing up.

I have finally found the courage to be disliked—yes, you should read Finding the Courage to be Disliked—and embrace who I am, oddities and all.

Have you noticed the clues to who you are?

That thing you find easy, that you don’t even think about, that thing is part of who you are.

Seeds grow for me. It never occurred to me that they wouldn’t—it is part of my family heritage. My great-grandfather grew vegetables in London during The Blitz. His daughter, my grandmother, came to Australia as a war bride and lived on a farm not far from where I am now, growing food and raising her babies. Although she died young, as those in the past often did, she left her legacy: my uncle and my mother can both grow things. My other aunts and uncles probably can, too, but they have moved on and so I cannot vouch for the greenness of their thumbs.

My uncle is so good at growing things that you can tell where he has walked in the garden. The lettuce seeds that drop from his pocket sprout, forming a yellow brick road all the way to Oz.

My mother is almost as good. Almost. Her true talent lies more with animals. An area I am sadly lacking in; although I do manage to keep the chooks alive, so there is that, I suppose.

I have inherited a way with seeds, however. Perhaps not on the level of my uncle but not far behind. For a long time, I didn’t notice. I simply planted things and they grew. I currently have a lemon tree that was terribly sick when given to me. It is in the ground and wavering. At this, the three-week mark, my logical mind says ‘pull it out, it’s a goner’ but my heart says ‘maybe it just needs a little more time’ and so I leave it. I hold the illogical belief that perhaps all it needs is to rest awhile. It’s life has been hard so far.

I am puzzled when people tell me they cannot grow things.

How is that possible? Things grow. That is what they do. It turns out that what is really going on is that growing things is something I can do without thought. It is, therefore, something I am meant to do.

I expect that you have something you can do that you assume is as simple as breathing, that you believe everyone does. This is one of the things you are meant to do.

Yes, the logic is simple. But why not do the thing you find comes naturally? Why make everything so complicated?

If you can cook and I can grow vegetables, then together our future is bright. Sharing the things we can do results in both of us flourishing. I can be glad about your abilities and you glad about mine. This is love.

Love is finding out where you fit and seeing the value of what you do in that place. Love is seeing the same value in others. Love is the mystery of happily doing your thing, and contributing to the lives of others by being who you are.

Cassandra finishes capturing her castle writing ‘I love. I have loved. I will love’.

Love matters.