Every day, when I’m working at my office, I take a break to walk around the block.  I enjoy the exercise, as well as the opportunity to discover more about the neighborhood I’ve worked in for over fifteen years.

On my walk a few months ago I noticed a small tomato plant growing from a crack in the sidewalk.  A few weeks later a single cherry tomato popped out.  Every day after that I looked forward to seeing the small green fruit grow and ripen to red.

I didn’t intend to pick it.  I simply valued its being there until the day I walked by and the cherry tomato was gone – along with the entire plant.  Maybe someone else was taking a walk around the block and found the plant to be out of place.  After all, tomatoes belong in farms and gardens, and should not grow through a crack in the sidewalk of a commercial street, should they?

What do we call a plant that is out of its rightful place?  That’s right, we call it a “weed.”  In the words of Emerson, a weed is “a plant whose virtues have not yet been discovered.” And what do we do with weeds?  We pull them up and throw them away.

Of course, one person’s discovered treasure may invoke another person’s scorn.  Whenever I walk the neighborhood, I pick up plastic cups, used surgical masks, and paper bags with remnants of fast food, and put them into a trash container.  At one time those objects were useful.  Discarded on the street they became trash, first cousin to a weed.

I’ve thought about the single, out of place, cherry tomato for three months now.  I realize that the days are cold, and the tomato plant would have met its inevitable fate even if it had not been prematurely plucked from its place in the world.

My real question is this:

Am I a cherry tomato, appreciated wherever I may be, or am I a weed, my virtues undiscovered in this world of humans passing by?

Alan

The oft quoted phrase, “You Can’t Go Home Again,” is the title of a novel written by Thomas Wolfe and published in 1940, after his death.  In his book the author elaborates, “You can’t go back home to your family, back home to your childhood … back home to a young man’s dreams of glory and of fame … back home to places in the country, back home to the old forms and systems of things which once seemed everlasting but which are changing all the time – back home to the escapes of Time and Memory.”  (The ellipses are in the original.)

Yesterday evening I thought about this phrase as the four members of our present household (my wife, daughter, grandson, and me) sat in our family room, each eating our own separately prepared dinner.

When I was young my mother spent several hours each afternoon talking to me while cooking dinner for our family of four (Mom, Dad, my brother, and me), which, by Dad’s decree, always began at 5:30 pm.  I’ve missed the warmth of those family dinners for many, many years.

Now, after almost ten months of COVID-19 rampaging through the land, most everyone I know wants to go home again.  By that I mean that we all want to go back to “normal.”

Yet Thomas Wolfe was right.  We can never go back to the 1950’s, being young (or younger) again, or even to the comparative safety of the Thanksgiving and Christmas we knew in 2019, which now seems like a distant shore.

But home is more than a physical place or memory.  As Pliny the Elder wrote 2,000 years ago, “Home is where the heart is.”  It is where we feel, or should feel, safe.  In my life I’ve lived in eight homes, all in Los Angeles, each with its share of love, warmth, and memories.

I can’t go back to my family of origin, because I’m the only one of the four of us who now survives.  I can’t go back to the house I grew up in because it has changed, as have I.  Years ago my father and I returned to the location of the home in New York where he grew up.  We found it replaced by a large beer manufacturing plant that covered the entire block.

My father masked his disappointment with anger.  “I never want to come back here again,” he said.

Even if we can’t go back again, we can go forward.  In fulfilling our lives each day we can return our hearts to a place where we feel safe, a home we continually create and recreate, with and for those we love.

Will next year be different than 2020?  Of course.

But we can and will still be at home on this Earth we love.

Alan

The proverb “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step” is attributed to the Chinese philosopher Lao-Tzu.

For me, my first step is often the most challenging.  I have consistently written my blog every week for more than seven years.  I never lack for ideas.  Most weeks I have two or three new ideas that I either immediately write down or promptly forget.  It seems that the better the idea, the more quickly I forget it, sometimes just as I begin to write it down.  That’s why I always carry a pen and paper, or an iPhone, and why I have accumulated a long list of ideas.

Once I sit down and write the title and first sentence of my blog, the ideas seem to flow.  But sitting down in the first place?  Ay, there’s the rub.

With so many paths available in life, you never know where your first step might take you. In terms of a career the first step is often preliminary to the discovery of one’s journey.  One of my young grandsons is fascinated by anything to do with building and city design.  He often discusses this subject with his maternal grandfather, who is a retired architect.  Will my grandson turn out to be an architect?  Perhaps. Encouraging his interest could be the first step in what might become his chosen career path, and without that first step he might never discover and develop his passion.

My son Craig, is a professor.  When Craig was a college undergraduate I asked him the typical parent question, “What did you learn this semester?”  He immediately began to rattle off a number of psychology studies, in detail, including the name of each author.  I was dumbfounded.  When I was a college student I generally remembered the basic ideas from a course, but never many details.  That’s one reason I’m not a professor. I was never willing to take even the first studious step.

Other areas of our lives also begin with an essential first step. A friendship begins with saying hello. A marriage begins with a proposal. “Will you marry me?” is a first step to what will hopefully will become a lifelong journey.

Two of my grandchildren, now in their twenties, have recently released original songs they have written and recorded.  Will one or both of them become the next Beyoncé or Frank Sinatra?  Time will tell.  I’ve never had a desire to write or record a song, so that’s a first step I’m not likely to ever take. I’ve published five books, however, and each one began with my writing down a single word.

I’m sure I will take a number of steps today.  I wonder which, if any, will be the beginning of a longer journey.

How about you?

Alan