A Container Of Flowers, Weeds And Thoughts Watched Over By An Angel Elita Sohmer Clayman

In my first article for Cockeysville Patch now renamed Hunt Valley-Cockeysville, I wrote that “in the Talmud it says that a blade of grass becomes a patch and continues to grow and every blade of grass has its own
Angel that bends over it and whispers Grow, Grow”. That was on July 19, 2011. I repeat this now again after one hundred ninety two articles for Patch and I feel that I had a blade of grass with an Angel and it has helped me to grow some too as a senior or active adult.

When our lawn gets too tall, it is time to trim, cut and take care of it. We all want lush green lawns with no weeds or dandelions showing through it. I read that in some countries, dandelions are considered pretty yellow flowers, whereas as soon as we see one, out comes the weed control company or we kill it our self. So to some, the little yellow flower is a source of beauty and to us, it is a pest of a weed and when you see dozens and dozens of them in a lawn; you think the owner of the house does not care for his home and lets these tiny, yellow and in our mind ugly flowers, remind us of the word weed and they multiply.

When we had our lawn redesigned about ten years ago, the nursery owner showed us pictures of what she suggested we have in the garden beds to make it pretty. She showed some different patches of flowers I wanted and lo and behold, there was a patch of yellow flowers. I said wait a minute, they look like dandelions. She said no they are not, they are and she gave them some exotic name. I was a bit leery, thinking others would think as they walked by this expensive venture of mine, they have huge amounts of dandelions, the dreaded weeds we are want to be rid of.

She talked me into it and now ten years later, they pop up each spring and they are gorgeous. Yes, they are yellow, but as they say, a rose by any other name is a rose. Well, these yellow flowers do have another name and they are not dandelions.

So these yellow plants do have an Angel bending over them that surely says Grow, Grow. The Angel lets them know they are not the dreaded dandelions, but they are the happily awaited other yellow flower. I shall find my invoice from ten years ago and reveal their real and true name.

There is a saying that says if you think you can, you can, if you think you can’t, you’re right.

Flowers give the majority of people great joy. On a weekend, you can see hundreds of people shopping at Home Depot, Lowes, Valley View Farms and other floral facilities and their carts are loaded with a multitude of various colors of annuals and perennials baskets of flowers. I like petunias because of their pretty blooms and assorted colors.

If you think you can attain joy from a hobby like flower planting and taking care of them all summer, you can. If you think you do not have a green thumb and the flowers will not prosper, then you are right.

Ballroom dancing is alike a flower pot. In it is a variety of dances, some you may like better than others and some you will do better with than others. Flowers are like that too, some blossom, others fail. In dancing, you can blossom with certain dances you prefer over more difficult ones you do not care about.

Sometimes the flower pot will over grow and it gets too tight in the pot with too many flowers, so you transfer some of them to another pot or even a hanging container that beckons visitors to your front door. Dancing is like that, sometimes you try to learn too

 many steps or patterns and you get too full of knowledge and it overwhelms you and you have to transfer the knowledge into another place for use at a different, time when you are ready for it.

When I write these Patch stories, I get overwhelmed with thoughts and have to transfer some of them for the next article.

When I applied for this Cockeysville Patch job, I sent in to the editor Nayana Davis many samples of my writing and of course, she was smart enough to realize the value of my different capabilities on writing about ballroom dancing, life as a senior and about almost everything else there is.  She at her young age is intuitive enough to understand all publications need diversity and she hired me. I give her high marks in her editorship and her extensive knowledge of how to grow a blade into a big and beautiful Patch. A Patch full of a variety of different blooming flowers, young writers, a senior writer (me) a young mother writer, political writers and a wide vase of diversive  and distinctive opinions and thoughts. That is why this particular Patch is successful due to her perception and recognition of many different flowers in one lovely container. It contains everything beautiful coming from the one blade of grass and having the Angel bending over it and saying Grow, Grow. Even though the Angel whispers it, it is heard.