During the past fifteen years or so, I’ve had to make a lot of decisions. Life and death type decisions. (Other people’s deaths, my continued life.) Decisions such as how to get through the next minute, hour, year. Decisions such as where to go, what to do.
My decisions today are trivial compared to those decisions that had such far-reaching consequences. In fact, these current decisions don’t really have any close-reaching consequences, either. I suppose in the long run, today’s decisions could have consequences since almost everything does, but anything that might come from these decisions is more a matter of taste and perspective than anything else.
For example, some of the flowers I planted in my raised garden a couple of years ago went to seed, and those flowers did well and they too eventually went to seed and filled in around the vegetables I planted last year. Since I can never count on any seed sprouting, instead of simply watering the raised garden and seeing what would happen, I planted petunias. Shortly afterward, a huge number of seedlings from previous plantings appeared. I hoed them under, not wanting them to compete with the petunias, but then another crop of seedling appeared.
Some of these seedlings are grass, I think, and those I can get rid of as soon as I know for sure. Others are marigolds and still others are moss roses. One decision to make is if I want the orange from the marigolds to break up my color scheme of pale yellow, bright pink, and dark red petunias. Another is if I should just let the seedlings do what they want, and if they end up interfering with my artistic sense, I can transplant the mature marigolds into empty garden spots. Or I could eventually move the petunias. Or I could . . .
See? Decisions. Decisions.
I’m not one for making decisions anymore, not that I ever was. By the time I look at every side of an issue or a problem, I usually come to the conclusion that either way has its good and bad points and makes no difference which I choose, which ends in a decision-making stalemate. (If there’s a major benefit to one point of view, then obviously there’s no decision to make. It’s the evenly balanced choices that get to me every time.)
Luckily, I don’t have to decide anything. I can wait to see what happens, but I also know that once the plants take hold, I won’t want to get rid of them. Transplant them, yes. Treat them as weeds, no.
Meantime, there are plenty of other things to do in the yard, things that need no decisions made about them. Well, that’s not true. The cottage pinks in the wildflower garden need a “haircut,” but do I do it now or wait until they’ve gone to seed? Or do I do it now and leave a few stalks to go to seed. More decisions!
I know one thing that doesn’t need any decisions made about it. In fact, I completely forgot about this dwarf evening primrose until I saw it in my predawn watering cycle.
Luckily, I don’t have to do anything about any of this today. Tomorrow can take care of itself.
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Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One
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