Of Flowers & Friends

I very much love my garden. One could say I never grew out of playing in the dirt. Growing flowers are one of my favorite parts of gardening, no surprise there.

Flowers come in all sizes, shapes, colors and temperaments.  There are annuals, succulents, perennials, flowering bushes and trees.  The variety is endless.  Some are fragile requiring great care where some are thorny, not very fussy and prefer less attention.  No matter what their temperament, with proper care, flowers can give you much beauty and pleasure.   I find that even though they are fragile they are surprisingly resilient when we give them the proper nurturing they require. The better the care we give, the greater the reward.

The same thing applies to our friends.  The comparisons are undeniable: annuals just live for a short time or a season .  Perennials however, with care, will come back every year with amazing regularity and beauty.  Bushes and trees are sturdier and will never go away or fail us giving us a beautiful display in their season.  Our friends have many of these same characteristics.  Some are only here for a short time or season, where some are constant and will always be there, for a life time or for as long as God allows.Friends require the same care we would give our gardens.  Sometimes a flower or plant just doesn’t make it.  It may be because of something we did or didn’t do, nonetheless we learn from our mistakes.  However there are times, despite all our efforts, a plant or flower just fails for no apparent reason.  It simply was not meant to be.  Some budding friendships are the same way.  Not matter what we do they just don’t make it for many, many reasons.  Plainly, they just weren’t meant to be our friend much as the flower choose not to survive in our garden and that is ok.The fact is friends, just like flowers, come in an out of our lives with great regularity.  Some take a little longer to cultivate but last for a very long time.  Some become life long friendships that can withstand  difficult times, while others have a short season and move on.  Sadly some of our friends leave this world and us way before their time.  Our friends are a precious gift who help lift our spirits when times are tough.  They are ever kind and forgiving when we make mistakes.  Often our friends we tell us a truth that we need to hear when no one else will.  Our path in life would not be complete without our friends as companions.Regrettably, there is always something that seems to get in the way or prevents us from setting time aside to enjoy our friends and the gifts they bring.  Nevertheless we greatly enjoy our friends in what ever time we are able to spend with them or for  however long they are with us.  The world would be a very lonely and colorless place without them.

You are probably wondering what this is all about aren’t you.  It has been a time of reflection for me.  My musing is about taking time in the garden of our friends.  If you don’t mind, I would like to tell you about a relaxing, easy kind of day I recently had with a cherished friend.  For some this may seem kind of boring, for others it will entertain.  The point is to find a way to enjoy each of our friends as often as we can in our life’s journey.

Simply put, I love spending the day with a very good friend as much as I love working in my garden.  It is one of the great joys we seem to have difficulty allowing for ourselves.  One of the things we do when a longtime friend and I plan a day together is to do something that is not on the usual list, such as shopping, eating out, gossiping and drinking a very good wine.  We still do these things but it isn’t the main focus.

Something this friend and I had talked about doing for a VERY long time was to do an underground tour of the city near where we live. Well, we finally set the time aside and we went.  The underground tour was really interesting.  We think we know allot about where we live until we do something like this and we discover things or a history that we never knew existed.  After the tour we had lunch at a location my friend frequents.  We talked and laughed about our families, all the things that were happening in our neighborhood and her adventures working in the city (ah, the joys of gossip).  After lunch we went to an art gallery and meet the artist who was currently showing his work.  The art was amazing, some of which represented our city as it was in the 50’s.  Be both remarked that his work was a great reminder to always enjoy the time we have now, that time waits for no one.

http://www.cavemania.com/

After lunch we found ourselves casting about for something else to do.  We decided to go to a one man show called “Defending The Caveman”.  We had no particular reason for choosing this other then it sounded fun.  The premise of the play was about the cultural differences between men & women.  It was funny and poignant at the same time.  If you haven’t seen it and the show is in your area I highly recommend you take your friend, husband or significant other and go see it.  You will roll in the isles with laughter and have much to talk about after.  It is really, very funny and well worth the time.

We closed the day by going out to dinner to a place we had not been to before.  Yes, we did the eating to much and drinking to much thing.  It just couldn’t be helped … 😀… and of course we never, ever forget dessert.  All in all it was another amazing, memorable day with my friend.

We never go into a relationship with the thought that it is temporary (at least I don’t) so the eternal optimist in me truly believes that any new friends, like my flowers, will be there for a very long time.  If we are unfortunate to have lost a friend from an illness or tragic event it reminds us all to take advantage of the time we have because we just never know when that won’t be case.  The way I see it is we need to make the most of who is in our lives every moment.  The richness of all the experiences each friend or relationship bring, no matter the length, are so very important and worth the time.  All our friends or relationships makes life interesting, fun and eases the journey, at times offering valuable lessons or needed guidance, when we are trying to find our way.  We do much the same for them in return.  In the end if one moves on as is a natural part of life, regardless of the reason, then we will still have great memories of the time we spent with each other.

Much like my garden, the rewards of nurturing a relationship of any kind are well worth the effort with the rewards going both ways.  A garden is never finished and always involving much like my quest in Finding A New Path, that is the beauty of it.  Relationships or friendships of any kind are much the same. There is a season for everything and everything a season including relationships and friendships.