I had important things to do today, dammit. Smart things, academic things. A study I’m working to organize, a pesky assignment. And all that laundry. I woke with great energy and ambition for the tasks before me. And I’ve worked. But now I’m tired, and a pile still sits in front of me, maybe bigger than before.

This multi-faceted life is, at times, so difficult – school plus bedside plus writing work plus life? Shoot. There is little space in these seconds for oxygen. I have no complaints for this path I daily choose, but I do grow weary of writing this beat. I spend many minutes dreaming of time to write the stories within me.

Before I dove into the pool of words and work today, I mustered up the courage to set it all aside for awhile. Donning my green Hunter boots and an old rain jacket, I walked with coffee mug and umbrella down to the river. I brought a pair of tiny scissors, and picked fallen blooms in the fall-ravaged park. Golden rod and wheat-looking things, and tiny daisies that the wind had blown aside. By the time the rain froze my fingers, they held a large bunch of scavenged foliage.

In my gathering, I was stopped many times by the varying landscape. Blossoming flowers stood beside shorn, dead stalks. Some bushes swayed in their prime, others blew bare and leafless. The gardens started dialogue within me about the variances of my days – the gorgeous contrast of nature’s palette mirroring my moment-by-moment “lives and deaths.” Where some might just see weeds fading with the season, I saw the ironic, vibrant contrast of my current world.

As I spend moments in study, I sacrifice moments with friends. Whenever I go for a run, I give up time I could lounge on my couch. At work, I cannot play, and in my play, there is no space for work. The same is for all things, no? Relationships, commitments, meetings all require the choosing of one thing, and the laying aside of another.

I think I spent a solid two hours out there by the river. My final product – a bouquet full of weeds in all stages of living and dying. And the fresh feeling that these chilly, silent hours filled me with.