Planting seeds

Change takes time.

Communities take time to change.  People take time to change.  I take time to change.

I know that the change that I want to be a part of is a far more intensive investment than a 30 day experience.

But with that goal in mind, every July I keep packing as much as I can carry into my backpack and traipsing around the world for a new adventure.  

The dreams that I have for the places that I go are longterm.  Nothing that will ever be attained in a 30 day timeframe.

But I still go.

I know that my work in a community may be as quickly forgotten as my name to the woman that served me my coffee this morning.  

True and lasting change takes time.  Like, it takes generations. It doesn’t come in a thirty day span.  And I am well aware of that.  Even so,

I don’t think that my thirty days are wasted days.  I don’t think that I would be of better use to humanity if I traded my world travels for time at the beach.  

I think that it matters, even if it is short-lived.

It’s like planting seeds. Sometimes they grow.  Sometimes they don’t.  Sometimes you see them break through the soil.  Sometimes you don’t.

Sometimes you see the plants of someone else’s seeds.

Sometimes you plant seeds, sometimes you water the seeds, sometimes you cultivate the soil.  But you always garden.

That’s what motivates me to give my July in a new world without ever knowing what may come from it.  That’s what motivates me to give my life to education and plant roots so deeply that i have seen my first students graduating college.

So I will keep giving my Julys for as long as I can.

I will keep going, keep planting.

I go because going makes a new me.  Every year i become a new version of myself.  

I see the world with fresh eyes.  And I come home to my own world with fresh eyes.  

Gardening is good for the world, good for my soul.   Even if I'm not around to see the flowers.