Inspirations

Occasionally we are privileged to attend events that affect us in ways we didn’t see coming.

Some emotional connections are so otherworldly they exist beyond description.

Our daughter Rachel and son-in-law Angel’s recent beach wedding was one of them. Truly inspirational, their devotion and happiness were contagious, inspiring reactions so strong our eyes leaked uncontrollably for days.

Weddings of close relatives can be utterly engaging. Our history, in part, contributes to or at least participates in the making of their story. Further, they can inspire us to see life beyond the moment, simultaneously projecting ahead and relating back to our own experience. Ties that bind.

We watch our adult children continue to grow as we navigate our own lives, much in the way we manage our gardens. The ongoing task is deciding what to keep and cultivate; what to remove and replace. Everything does change over time, including ourselves.

As we enter our own new decades, we need to unlearn certain behaviors that hinder our personal growth. Behaviors that don’t help the cause. Believe me on that. Not every plant we started years ago should remain in our yard. Life is short. Let’s enjoy our surroundings and surround ourselves with what we enjoy.

When we look back on our own story, it’s hard not to envy who we were in the day, because we were fearless. We took on challenges, and marriage is indeed a loving challenge, and turned them into opportunities.

Perhaps now we’re a little wiser, gentler and not as unyielding.

Watching others embark on that early stage of joining their lives together reminds us that just because we placed part of us in a drawer someplace, we didn’t lose it. We can still pull it out and wear it again, just a little differently than before.

I delight in my old photographs of Megan, my only permanent crush, when we were just dating. Her hair was different and darker, but she always loved sweaters, summer and sunsets. Oh, and bicycles. Periodically I pick up one of my photo albums and go through one picture at a time, trying to remember the place and people in them. Just like my ancestors did. These days, scrolling through a small phone for a remarkable photo is akin to watching a movie like “Napoleon” on an iPad. Something is lost in that arrangement.

Some people believe in age as a timepiece; I believe in energy. Our current circumstances don’t determine where we can go. They merely determine where we will start next.

So, let’s consider how we’ll start our day and in the larger sense, how we’ll nurture our personal garden this year. There is so much beauty ahead of us. The inspirations are endless.

Jim Sollecito is the first lifetime senior certified landscape professional in New York State. He operates Sollecito Landscaping Nursery in Syracuse. Contact him at 315-468-1142 or jim@sollecito.com.