Watering Can of Words

June 30, 2005

Maybe it’s the Aries in me, but I never thought I’d take it this far. I never thought I’d actually end up here. I figured, right from the get-go, that I’d start my new project and, like so many projects in the past, explode into it with a great outburst of energy… only to watch it slowly dissipate into nothing as the wind left my sails. Its a story I can tell over and over again, substituting this project for that one or that hobby with this one. Over time, boredom or mundaneness almost always creeps in and something that once held my interest slowly dies like the potted plants which I’ve tried so hard over the years to keep watered.

First the leaves fall off… the “meat” of the project. When I’m left with nothing but green twigs, I say to myself “Damn it, Phillips… water that thing”. I’ll splash a little water on the leafless twig… I’ll funnel a little renewed energy into the project. For a brief instance, hope seems not lost. Buds may reappear, both on the plant and in the project. But deep down inside I know that the buds will never blossom. I know that, once rigor starts to set in, there is no reviving the plant… or the project. Once I’m thoroughly convinced that death is at hand, the living, breathing plant, that at one time was so special, hits the bottom of my trash can with a deafening “thump”… and there it stays until it at last finds peace in the land of forgotten dreams… the city dump.

So many plants have come and gone that it’s almost hard to remember them all. I didn’t give them names, of course, but I can remember some of them as if it were only yesterday that they captivated my eyes. I had one that lived for almost a year. Granted, it was a long vine with no leaves on it for a third of that year. But damn it, I kept those vines alive for a lot longer than most of the other ones. When I lived with my sister, we had one that lived for several years. If she weren’t there to water it, it too would surely have perished along with the rest.

Several plants have come and gone, yet one has somehow managed to sustain itself. One has watched in fear as the other died. “Am I next”, it has surely wondered. But for reasons which allude me, it has managed to make it longer than the rest. And it hasn’t just survived in the basic sense of the word. It is alive… full of leaves… and growing still to this day.

Saturday is the one-year “anniversary” of this blog. I can’t believe it. I found something that I can keep watered.

Posted in Blog Related, Noteworthy, Personal

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