ROOTS
There are six things with which I am obsessed—Words. Great Danes. Design. Shed Antlers. Cemeteries. Moss.
INTRO—This is a season that can only be described as the opposite of anchored. Maybe you feel it too. I touched on what I’m feeling in the entry last week and, judging by the comments, the residue of this uprooting season is also resonating in you.
I went back through the blogposts of the past two years*, in search of what I had written about roots. I read through each entry that gave even just a glimpse into the subject and, in the process, I learned something about myself. That is, my favorite words are nearly always in context of nature, my thoughts on life swept together like colorful leaves piled high for jumping in.
While others found their joy in the crowded streets of Stockholm, I lost myself in this quiet resting place nestled in Lidingö. This is where her ancestors sleep for eternity under soft chartreuse clinging to ancient stones laid to honor the dead, then stretching like longing fingers far beyond hollowed-out trees cradling bodies deep beneath.
This is not the first time I am mesmerized by the unrestrained nature of moss. Yet I can’t remember a time being so struck by the revelation that my fear of being stuck in life, finds its genesis in the idea of being [at the end of it] encased inside a wooden box.
“Stuck,” it seems to me, is not so much the disposition of the body as the refusal of the heart to transcend. We have become morbidly attached to our folded arms and stubborn scowls for fear of wandering too far from what we are certain of. And we are too certain of so many things.
Moss, it seems, is commentary of neither holding on or letting go but rather a soft and rhythmic moving forward anchored in both what has been and what we know.
I am moss.
Or at least I’d be complimented by the comparison.
Roots without constraint, grabbing tightly to what is directly under foot,
anchoring me to ground already covered, tiny rhizoids like lifelines pushing me forward while securing me to who and what I am.
To be tethered to an expansive and unending territory while simultaneously being rooted in the lessons and not the territory itself. This is moss. A depth dependent not on a vertical disposition but the wisdom unfolding ahead.
Moss grows as it moves. Moss breaths as it propels forward. Moss nourishes itself and what it touches as it grows.
Let me be moss. Spreading to every neglected corner and crevice.
When we define depth by standing still, let us recognize how much we miss.
Those of us who are nomads [in our willingness to explore our beliefs, our heartaches, our limitations, our potential] understand that life is fleeting and the world is vast.
There is so much to see and be, so many lives to transform and touch.
Like moss, we are the blankets, you and I, spread out and over to soften and warm.
Though our roots may not go deep, our attachments are instant, sure, and sturdy.
And once our hearts grab hold, it is nearly impossible to separate us from what we hope, what we trust, what we love.
*WORDS ON ROOTS—
https://www.sanctuaryliving.life/everything-changes/
https://www.sanctuaryliving.life/taking-territory/
https://www.sanctuaryliving.life/i-have-lived-in-twenty-two-houses/
