In March of this year, I bought a very healthy aloe vera plant that already had a few young shoots growing around the mother plant (in the photo above). After about seven months of growth, I noticed recently that she and her family were starting to wilt and grow yellow and they seemed to be jostling for space in their small pot. I’m very much a beginner when it comes to gardening but with the help of Google and YouTube I realised that they needed repotting plants into separate pots. With some Google guidance, I carefully tipped the plant up and let her and her children slide out of their tight enclosure, trying not to break their enmeshed roots. I then replanted them in a few different pots.
As I carefully separated the entwined roots of the young plants from the mother plant, I couldn't help but see the analogy with my own recent separation from my children. As I entangled a few enmeshed roots, inevitably some of them were broken in the separation and as I eased each child away from the mother plant, words of a poem came to me that I have shared at the end of this blog.
Having just returned after my recent visit back to the UK, I reflected on the special memories of quality time that I had spent with my son and daughter. It was so good to have long walks together that enabled long talks in which we reached greater depths that would have been hard to reach via WhatsApp. There’s a quality of relationship that can only be felt when we are physically in the same room, when we can hug each other, share an activity together and feel the physical presence of a loved one close to us. Its perhaps why people prefer live music or to see a speaker in person rather than to watch a video; there’s a deeper quality in presence, more than just what we can see and hear. It's an energy that we share when we inhabit the same space and are breathing the same air.
A few weeks on from the repotting and most of the plants are doing well- sadly Cosmos the cat played with one that didn't survive his feline input! I gathered them together for the photo below and it felt like they were being gathered for a family photo. Now that they each have their own pot, they have space to grow; to go in their own directions and the freedom to express themselves in their own unique ways without the constriction of mother plant and the original pot. In the same way, my own children need their individual space to grow, to go in their own directions and to have the freedom to express themselves in their own unique ways. I can still watch and support them from afar but as parents we need to give our children space to be who they are and not what we want them to be (if these do not align).
You may have heard this quote in some form, that children need a secure home and stability as they grow up so that they can grow roots and then they need freedom to fly so that they can grow wings. We need both roots and wings. Looking back on when we were all together at home, I really value those memories although it was a busy and pressurized time of balancing work and parenthood – days filled with checking PE kits and homework, sorting out lifts to football and drama lessons, holidays and birthday parties and everyday meals and banter around the kitchen table. It was good sharing that pot called home and to experience the highs and lows together in which my children grew strong roots in who they are and what they value. But then there comes a time when they need to be in their own pots, to find their own spaces so they can stretch their wings and take flight to reach the amazing potential that is within them. As parents we also need that individual space to grow and to reconnect with who we are, apart from being a parent. Seeing my children recently, I noticed how they are maturing, developing in who they are and who they are striving to be, as they create their future lives.
That potential to grow is in all of us. I have been uprooted from my UK home and re-potted here in Grenada so that I can learn to fly in new ways. We all need times of moving out of our comfort zones of familiarity, being placed in new situations, so that we can continue to develop. New challenges enable us to connect with parts of our potential that we didn’t know existed when we lived in the familiar. It is only when we are faced with challenges that we have to dig deeper into our own depths to find the resources to keep us standing and to find ways to fly.
Along with the repotting of the aloe vera, I have been doing other gardening jobs. I had planted some grapefruit seeds and thankfully one has grown sufficiently tall to be planted in the garden. A friend of mine also gave me a sorrel plant which has also gone in the garden. Both of these saplings were outgrowing their pots but they now look so fragile in the expansive space of the garden compared to the safe confines of their pots. I have to trust that they will grow deep with their roots and become established in their new homes. It is still the rainy season here until December and so it is a good time to plant seedlings but the rain is so forceful here compared to the gentle sprinkling that they are used to from the watering can. Again, I can hear echoes of a mother's heart as to whether they will survive in the big wide world on their own without the safety of being watered and cared for in their little pots on the secluded balcony. I have to trust that their roots are strong enough to keep them standing when the heavy rains fall and that they will grow much bigger in the freedom of their new space than they could ever grow in a pot.
One of the new goals that I set myself when I returned here was to learn more about poetry. This was inspired by one of my friends who I visited in the UK who has started to write poetry and her powerful words have inspired me to try and write more myself. I have started learning about the different types of poetry and I tried to write a haiku about repotting which wasn't working. Thankfully I discovered that there are different versions of Japanese poetry and the Tanka is an older version that allows for more syllables. A Tanka is often about a strong emotion and has the pattern of 5/7/5/7/7 syllables per line. So, I will close with this -
Tight, bound, entwined roots
Enclosed in pot, needing space
To grow, separate
Wholesome, strong roots are broken,
During the pain of parting.
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