When the strawberries bloom
or how I'm learning to have patience.
Last summer season, when my childhood home was back under my care and my world had started to slowly spin apart, I took in the sunshine and made a rather instant purchase of already fruiting strawberry plants. I wanted to remember what it was like to pick wildly at berries right out my front door, hands sticky and dripping with juice, filling buckets for pie. I wanted things I’d lost, that back then hadn’t cost me a dime. And for a season, I was rich in it.
I didn’t realize it then, but those strawberries were the start of a campaign to slow down.
If you’ve been subscribed for a bit, you know that since then a lot has happened, the biggest event being I lost my mom in January. With other demands on my time, thoughts, and money, I've been forced to reconsider how I interact online. I no longer peruse pop blogs or news sites. I have unfollowed most influencers unless they’re actively selling very little and that they look *real (meaning unfiltered, with different body types, etc.). I’ve even muted friends that make me feel anxious with their perfect feeds.
I just don’t have time to feel bad about what I don’t have or can’t buy or have FOMO over. There are so many things that actively need my attention and scrolling social media can make me feel like I’ve lost agency in my own life.
Of course, I still try to engage. I still talk about the things I’m passionate about. I still look at jokes and memes and successes of my friends. I still want to scream and fangirl with the best of them. But the ability for this to consume me, just isn’t there right now. The influence that I’m not doing enough, buying enough, being enough, is casually wending away.
And with that gone, I’m also noticing that my need for immediate satisfaction is also, slowly, receding, too. I’m sitting with want more than I have in a decade. It eats at me in a way that makes me want to scream, but now there’s a small voice talking back, saying, just a little longer and it’ll be worth it.
With the Poe book currently being out in the query trenches, I find myself having to dial back my impatience and despair, but not as much as before. I’ve found a small sense of peace in the waiting because I know, one way or another, this book will find a place in the world.
Just like me.
The other day I walked out my stone steps to take in the yard work my husband had done. The weather here has been chaotic, swinging from one extreme to another, so I had been hesitant to take a peek at the desolate patch of ground that used to be my garden. Now, though, it was right in front of me, leaving me no choice but to look.
Tiny pink flowers bloomed, sprawling far beyond the rock that had originally been my strawberry patch. The nervous wings fluttering in my belly settled and I smiled. They reached to the farthest ends, promising many, many more berries come June.
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This month I’m not going to share what I’m loving in the spirit of deinfluncing and slowing down.
Instead, I encourage you all to take a moment and filter who you’re following on socials. Maybe wait a week before buying that thing to see if you really want it or are just trying to ‘keep up’. Post something a little vulnerable, just to gritty up your feed. write something with no timeframe of completion. Buy a plant and wait for it to bloom.
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