Funny about roots. I was just thinking about this song as I was cleaning out my flower beds this weekend. Talk about "no roots" as being a major goal of mine! As anyone who enjoys gardening will tell you, it is the roots attached to unwanted weeds that are the most frustrating to get rid of. At one point, I yanked the living crap up and out of one "thing" (whatever it was!) that I swear was over three feet long! I also thought about the Bible verses which talked about our spiritual condition as same related to seeds that are planted and the extent to which they can or cannot survive over time (Matthew 13 in case you're interested in reading about the Parable of the Sower..).
This roots thing is a pretty big issue---and always has been. To have them...or not to have them....and what it means in the bigger scheme of our lives and the quality of our close relationships. Is it better to adopt the "No Roots" philosophy Merton sings about? Or is it worth establishing and at least attempting to maintain roots---no matter how shallow they may feel or literally be at times?
Currently, we all live in an age where anybody can basically pick up and go to wherever they want to live---and to work. Whether their destination ends up being across town or across the country, we all have the ability to start over/start new/start afresh if we choose to. When I was kicked out of my parents' house at age 18, thankfully I had somewhere to go and moved to another town. Because I had never lived outside of my hometown, it felt like a different state moving just under 20 miles away. And it was good for me. It was good for me because I didn't have to think about running into anybody I knew (from my old neighborhood) when I was out and about. I didn't have to talk about how my family of origin was to anybody if I didn't want to. I could just do me (as these kids call it today) and that was fine by me.
In that sense, I had no more roots to concern myself with regarding "family". Yet, there was something inside me that knew I still needed one (a "family" that is!). If you haven't ever seen the documentary "Paris is Burning"; time to check it out. Everybody yearns for their own "family"...even when the one we were born into throws us under the bus and then runs over our heads. Hey, this isn't news. Happens all the time. Happened to #MeToo. Of course, in cultivating the "House of Mary D", I wasn't interested in being anybody's Mom or Matriarch. I just wanted to be safely loved...and free to safely love in return. In that sense, I knew the roots I needed to re-establish were an important part of me feeling halfway decent about being here---about being my authentic self---and about finding/discovering my longer-term purpose over time.
For those who truly live the "No Roots" lifestyle....the quality of our lives gets reduced down to making the most of a bad situation. We were not created to live in isolation and truly trust no one. And I am not including here the person who decides to take a year off from life and just "do" themselves wherever that may mean and in the company of whomever they come across. Everyone loves a good adventure; I understand that. In the end, however, we all need to pick our right now and real life "life" so we can establish our roots, nurture them, allow them to grow, and allow ourselves to blossom as a result.
No roots may sound appealing when we are unsure as to who we are exactly or what it is we should be doing with our life over the longer term. Yet it is no way to live when suddenly we wake up one day and realize the opportunities we once thought would never end...have definitely ended.
Roots can be a bad thing when they represent the weeds that choke, kill, and destroy us from the inside out. Those kind always need to be yanked and discarded. However, for those roots that are truly "good"....we need to do our work to keep them alive and thriving...
Until next post....