Morning Glory Children

Morning glories are clambering over my arbor, their heart-shaped leaves a charming green background to the intense blue, pink, and purple flowers. Mixed in among them are a few Venice blue and Venice pink for contrast.

All these morning glories are volunteers, children of previous generations of morning glories. The line from a song in The Fantasticks goes,

"Plant a radish,

get a radish,

not a Brussel sprout."

In my garden, it's plant a morning glory one year; get dozens of morning glories next year.

We, too, have to plant and tend the qualities we want--kindness, patience, generosity, caring.

My cousin, Nadine, tries to be nice to me, even though i consistently annoy her. She's nice to me. Then something i do or say sets her off and breaks through her veneer of niceness. Maybe she thinks she's being nice by correcting me or by being critical? There. That should help me do it properly next time.

What if she practiced kindness instead of niceness?

We are not going to grow kindness by planting nice-ness. Maybe we won't grow too many friends by planting our opinions and critical comments either.

As one woman in the county jail said yesterday, "I can't slap every mouthy teenager. Otherwise, i'd be in jail for the rest of my life. Now I pause before reacting. The other women here on the block, even women who i didn't like at first, have started to like me."

Plant a pause before reacting. Pausing can be the first step to creating a beautiful mind.

Venice Pink & Venice Blue