Easy Fix - The Conflicted African Violet
There is a pressure of emotions that I can’t quite figure out how to identify. I can feel an innate need to release because it all feels so incredibly heavy, but I'm not sure how to do that. I am in a bad mood, but can’t express why. I feel sad, but the tears don’t come. I feel incredibly bitter, but I can’t put words to the rationale behind it. It's not just the move, it's unfinished projects. It's saying yes to things I do not have any business agreeing to. It's not stepping into what's next for me and instead procrastinating with silly energy and time suckers. It's looking around at my environment and being frustrated by the overwhelm of things not started, to-do lists not completed and tasks that feel like complicated fixes.
I lean over the island in the kitchen, pulling my hair up and back into a twisted and makeshift ponytail. It only stays that way for a second before my curls return to their wild and disheveled state. I realize I haven’t showered in two days, but it doesn’t matter so much since the only thing I've been focusing on these days is more purging and packing.
The African Violet sits – on the opposite counter with bright green leaves even though it's not blooming. It hasn't bloomed since I transplanted it into a lime green pot. A tiny pot, small enough it can sit on my counter and blend in with the others. The UPC code tag on the pot reads “Citronella”. I killed the citronella plant over 5 months ago. I bought it because I love the smell of citronella, and I loved the color of the pot. I put it outside with our deck furniture and very promptly killed it. So I transplanted the African violet … something I’d brought with me from the Virginia house, except during that move, I broke the pot that it lived in. Interesting that I was able to keep the African Violet alive but not the citronella plant.
Every time I look at the African Violet in the pot with an identify crisis since it obviously calls for a citronella plant, I internally fret about the fact that I planted the damn plant facing the wrong way. The tag that labels it as “citronella” faces the same way that the plant leans … towards the sunshine that filters through the windows about 10 feet away.
I realized tonight that I could do away with the irritation that runs on auto-play by simply repotting the African Violet. The easy fix of shifting the dirt and the roots so that what faces the sunlight and the life giving properties is wholly aligned with the very identity of the plant itself. No label, no sticker claiming its identity. Just an African Violet – straining towards the light.
What easy fixes are you ignoring? What consistently gets you down or frustrates you?
What could you do today to change your inner dialogue, or your physical surroundings?
