I Grow Stuff

When you move to a new place and almost every day meet someone for the first time you have plenty of chances to hear your “self” descriptions. The questions vary, “What do you do?” “What brought you here?” “What have you been reading?” and perhaps the season’s most likely question, “Who do you plan to vote for?” I listen to myself bungle through these introductory exchanges. Sometimes I even watch; observing my own body language can be a hilarious undertaking. Well-trained by years in the field of non-profit strategizing, I back up a step, take a breath (or two), evaluate the source, and spit out a helping of ambiguity. It’s not that I’m afraid of being known. I think it’s more that I’m really frightened of being small enough to be cornered and swallowed by three well-phrased sentences. In work force lingo you might say I’ve worked in advertising, marketing, programming, early childhood education, communication, family services, and small business development. In the language of the soul I’d say I grow stuff. But try describing yourself that way and watch as people leap to images of dark rooms, grow lights and bushy marijuana plants. It’s true though. Pretty much everything I’ve enjoyed doing has a lot to do with growing. I grew children. I grew a pre-school. I grew summer camps and mission camps and sports camps. I set out to increase awareness and deepen trust and grew all kinds of special events and programs along the way. I like growing things and then turning them loose. Now I’m reading books and blogs and publications about (no surprise) growing stuff. There are so many things that interest me…organic gardening, edible landscaping, slow food, sustainability, permaculture, community supported agriculture….the list keeps going. All of these things seem to be speaking, whispering, shouting to my soul of my next “life’s work” and are somehow connected, but it’s like having a 5,000 piece puzzle to work without the advantage of having a picture of the completed puzzle. I don’t really know how to describe this “self” at all, much less succinctly. So I’ve decided to quit being scared of fitting into three sentences and live with the ambiguity of downsizing to three words. I grow stuff.