I started seeds this week. I'm not sure if I began them as an affirmative action toward a hopeful future or as a form of escapism from a feeling of general uneasiness. Everything seems especially powder keg-y this week - as if all it will take is a single spark to light off one of those giant balls of fire, like in the movies, and all we'll hear is the "VOOOOOOM."
The list of things making me feel unsettled is long, and because our readership consists of primarily well-read news consumers, I'll spare us all the recounting. But it doesn't feel great out there right now. Politically, societally, culturally - I feel unmoored. Again.
I caught myself in what I like to call the "anxiety spiral of irrational risk analysis." As if hitting the refresh button on Twitter would finally give me the single insight to answer how horrible things can happen to innocents. I was stuck in the glitch - you know the one - where if I could just understand WHY, I could then somehow predict and prevent awful things in my own little world.
Being a parent is a constant struggle of risk analysis, which our brains aren't wired to do particularly well. So, when I kept refreshing the news on Twitter, I wasn't gaining insight; it just spiraled me faster into the darkness. I started playing that awful game of worst-case-scenario "what if" that everyone plays occasionally, and I felt afraid.
In a social media world, more than ever before, we are tempted to take complex and dynamic problems and distill them into tweets typed entirely in caps lock. After a full 24 hours of wondering if my kids' school could be next (not impossible, though highly unlikely), I decided to confront my information consumption and what it was doing to my psyche.
I knew that if I was in the darkness, others probably were as well. So, instead of turning my phone off, I decided to livetweet making a batch of feta cheese. In the past, I believed that being frivolous during serious times took away from the weight of the moment. After years of "serious times," I now think the juxtaposition of a palate cleanser allows us a better perspective.
Once done with the cheese (and then eating enough of it to make a lesser woman blush), I knew the next step out of the dark was to get my hands dirty. I pulled out the solo cups and the little black plastic flats of cells to start tomato seeds.
There is something about the muscle memory of filling containers with dirt and gently pressing in tiny promises, then marking them, that seems almost ceremonial. I feel like a sprite, pulling Spring into the open air with my act of hope.
I remember a few years ago when I changed from starting seeds in the window to start them under lights. I didn't have them on a timer, so they had constant light. "More light is better for plants," I thought and left them on all the time.
They germinated but quickly got sickly and died off. The plants were stemmy, and no amount of checking the water levels, temperatures, and ph of the soil seemed to help. I couldn't understand what was wrong.
When I called the local nursery and asked what to do, the kind older gentleman went through all the steps with me. He honed in on my light. "They only want 12-14 hours a day of light; how many are you giving them?" he asked. "24 hours," I said kind of sheepishly.
"Plants do a different kind of growing in the dark," he said. "You can't live with all light and no darkness; it's all balance."
The next day I added a simple timer to my little seed-starting setup, and my starts began to thrive.
Yesterday, starting seeds after my own week in the darkness, I stepped into the light. Horrible things happen; life can be scary and dangerous, and sometimes it’s unbearably hard. Sometimes all we can do is our best to find small joys and take tiny steps forward.
There is no life lived entirely in the light, and we do a different kind of growing in the dark. So, if you're like me and found yourself sitting in darkness this week, that ok. Just don't stay there for too long. It's all balance.
So beautiful. Thank you.