The seed catalogs have started to arrive. I love this harbinger of spring, evidence that winter is not forever. This week, their arrival got me thinking about seeds and the various forms in which they will naturally appear in my backyard. We always have scores of acorns. My youngest granddaughter spent hours collecting them last summer, sorting them, putting them in buckets, handing them to us to hold like precious treasures. I’m sure we will also have a lot of dandelion seeds blowing around. The mature, seed-bearing dandelion heads were also fascinating to the little one last year, but in a different way. She enthusiastically waved the puffy tops around, smiling with glee as the seeds blew away in the wind. I think that there’s an interesting metaphor here that’s useful to think about as we begin a new year and a new semester.
Some things that will happen this year are like Augie’s acorns. They need to be stored up and treasured, sorted and looked at again and again. They need to be remembered, learned from, or just pondered from time to time. But other things will-and should be-transient, allowed to drift off with the wind, let go to disappear into the next yard (sorry, neighbors!), with joy in their going. The trick is having the wisdom to know the difference.
Cage the squirrel, my friends.
