The Briar Philosopher - Four Rocks for Every Dirt

Well, the rain sure was a welcome gift over the weekend, as was a bit cooler weather. Sunday evening was as close to a pleasant evening outside as we’ve had for a while or are likely to have again for another while. After the rain, I managed to get a load of clothes on the line. I know I’ve mentioned it before, but having that clothes line there, especially when it has clothes hanging on it, just grounds me somehow and gives my brain a place to rest that feels like home. The Boy has mentioned feeling the same. It’s amazing how something so seemingly small can have such a strong emotional impact, but it makes sense. For both of us, a clothes line full of clothes or sheets and towels was pretty much an ever-present thing from Spring to Fall and even some pleasant winter days. 

With that sense of home comes other memories, all tied together with the word. The Boy told a little story the other day about a gentleman he encountered in his youth. Said gentleman had been out hoeing one crop or another and said that it was rough going because there were four rocks for every dirt. I laughed really hard at this because I immediately flashed back on planting and hoeing tobacco in a field that most definitely had four rocks for every dirt. It was rough going indeed. I can remember my knuckles bleeding from the planting and my teeth jarring together with the hoeing every time (all the time) my hoe would hit a rock. I hated that particular field. The rest of the fields were better than that but this was a small field that hadn’t been turned in quite a while if ever. I expect it had been turned at some point because there weren't any big rocks in it. Those had been cleared away at some point. There were, however, 18 billion small stones, just big enough to catch a knuckle just wrong or make a hoe bounce right back. The field was also on a slope so you were standing crooked the whole time you were hoeing. Even as a child, I loved that kind of work but that field was an exception. It was frustrating and exhausting. I can laugh about it now but I’m sure I wasn’t laughing then. I don’t remember ever working in that particular field again after that year and that was a good thing, for me at least. 

Now, I know that life itself can feel that way sometimes, not necessarily with rocks and dirts but with troubles and joys. It can sometimes feel that there are four sorrows for every joy. Sometimes that’s true. Sometimes though, the sorrows seem so big and so many that they cloud our hearts and blind us to the joys that are in our lives.  Even with that ornery tobacco field, I was so aggravated I can’t remember anything else that happened on those days. I know good things did happen because there was always something beautiful to see or to read or a good story told. But all I can remember is that darned field and the memory is so strong I’ve carried it all these years. That’s mostly because I dwelled on it and dreaded it. It might have taken up just a few hours of my life a few times a year and yet there it sits reflecting a bad day or two or three and none of the good.     

It’s so easy to do that. I think that’s why we are always told to count our blessings, especially in times of trouble. If we’re not careful one bad encounter or occurrence in a day will color our whole day or one bad week will color our whole month or one trying year can color our perspective for years to come as we dwell and revisit and wish things had been different. 

The Boy and I try to make it a point to recognize the good things when they happen; to notice them and make sure they are not ignored because there are so many other things that are grabbing at our attention that are not of a pleasant nature. It really helps to just pause and remember to be grateful for the good things, many of them small but important like clotheslines and rain and cool weather after the heat. Our lives are all a mix of good and bad, joy and sorrow, pain and promise. That’s pretty much what it is to be alive.  It is a fact, though, that it’s we who determine where our focus will be. Of course you have to solve problems but it’s better (I’ve learned from experience) to make sure I focus on at least one good thing a day and give thanks for it. It might be something as simple as a good cup of morning coffee prepared for me with love. It might be the way the breeze feels or the smell of raindrops hitting dry parched earth. It might be suddenly noticing how big and beautiful the sky is. Troubles will come and troubles will go. We just have to make sure we don’t invite them to stay any longer than necessary. We needn’t serve them tea or clean out the spare room for them, so we can keep them close by. We have to find the joy, the peace, the happy little things that we do need to keep close to our minds and hearts.  Don’t let your heart get hung out to dry.