For Now, There's Promise

There is something almost giddy about green sprouts.  From seeds fingered down into fresh soil only days ago, these emergent sprigs of hope and promise push aside all thought of the calamities quite potentially in front of them and concentrate imagination on their possibilities alone.  Here is abundance in miniature.  Here is lush fecundity within one's very grasp.  Here...alas...is all the naive glory of what might be, blinding any anticipatory glimpse of the fungi, the diseases, the bugs, or the simple neglect that very well could dim the glow.

Here is the new mother, brow still wet with labor's perspiration, and new father, face still contorted with cheesy/mystified grin, snuggling in their imagination into the cuddles and teacher's accolades and advanced college degrees to be earned, willfully ignorant of the colic, the broken curfews, and poor dating choices just as likely in store.

Here is the new recruit, starting eagerly to work, ready to take the world by storm -- increasing sales, expanding territory, lowering taxes, healing hurts, overcoming long odds, and bringing lasting peace to the Middle East -- without considering the break-room jealousies, the political calculations, the intransigent conflicts, the complicated human natures, and the unforeseen hurricane that sweeps away the prized project just beginning to bear fruit.

And here is the idealistic farmer who moves to his very own plot of ground and immediately orders seeds and wonders aloud what he will do with all the produce.

No, I'm not already grown cynical in this newly minted vocation.  If the harvest was smaller than imagined, there were nonetheless successes along with the failures in this first venture into the soil.  And there were joys and satisfactions infinitely more abundance.

It's just to say that "naive optimism" isn't given much room for rooting in this work, no matter how good the soil.  As with anything of consequence, bad can happen as well as good.  I understood that in my previous life; I'll eventually make room for that reality in this current one.

In the meantime, I don't take these little sprigs for granted -- nor the future I hope for them.  I'll simply do my part, as they will theirs, and together we'll take what comes.