Like Spiders On Your Best Bush

A Meditation On Expectations and Balance

I had a lovely conversation with my best friend today. And yes, I am lucky enough to have a best friend. She is the same friend that reminded me that if you have one or two close friends over a lifetime, you are doing pretty good. More than that is unusual. Plus, being a real friend takes effort. It’s not something you can phone in.

I was telling her about my grape vine. The joy I am experiencing watching it grow, leaf by leaf, inch by inch. The way I marvel at how it reaches out toward nowhere, in search of support. And when it find something secure to cling on to, it wraps its grape-y tendrils around it and hold on with palpable ferocity.

The wildness of the grip!

My older vine made grapes this year. It spent one baron year as a twig, casually poked into the terra firma of East Syracuse, NY after having broken off from an established vine. Last summer we marveled over it’s willingness to establish itself in our home in Pennsylvania, surrounded by different soil, different air, and a different growing region. It grew to about 4 feet and made the prettiest leaves. Perhaps it felt at home because it was coddled by the same tenor of love Compare Leonardo gave it back home.

I mentioned how beautiful the vines are to my friend and described the daily grooming I give them. Every morning and evening, in addition to watering, I search for invasive Lantern Fly larvae to flick into a jar of soapy water.

And then my friend told me about her bush.

Apparently her best and most beautiful flowering bush, the one who’s abundant flowers give off the most fragrant perfume, has the unfortunate side effect of attracting a special kind of spider that are, well, a real pain in the tuchus. Something she tended and hoped to enjoy in a relaxed way, has transformed into yet another thing to defend against the forces of nature.

And then our conversation turned, as they often do, to the insightful. Every positive thing comes with it’s share of negative, and it’s best, she says, to accept that. Life gets much easier if you do. As young idealists, we hope and believe that the good will overcome the bad. And we fight for that. It is a noble pursuit. As a young woman, I didn’t want to believe my father when he would warn me of the dangers in the world, of people. I wanted to believe in the nicey-nice world of mommies and Disney and Full House. He knew the world. He descended from people who survived centuries in Calabria. He himself grew from that rocky inhospitable soil.

My friend is right, of course. To expect the yin yang to play out in all things actually keeps one balanced and out of the extremes of life. It keeps one in the place where the still small voice can be heard. The one whispering “Grow! Grow!”

This is the proper use of expectation.