The Lost Trowel

This past weekend Michael and I tackled cleaning up our beach rose hedge (Rugosa Rose). We had put it off too long and it was a hot mess…to us. To the bees that were sharing our space, it is heaven on earth. Because we had not gotten to this task a month ago the bed surrounding the hedge was full of weeds of all sizes and types.  We had snow damage this past winter which meant that the hedge was jammed with broken, thorn-filled branches and leaves.  After 20 or so minutes, Michael remarked, “This is miserable, I feel like we are not making any progress”. After getting over my shock of hearing the man who never complains, utter complaint, I agreed with far less clean language. Having mutual misery felt bonding but also gave me pause to look at our project through the rearview mirror instead of the windshield. Looking backward is not usually helpful for me but in this case, it was. I saw that while the going was miserably slow, we were making progress. Looking ahead to all that needed to be done offered no joy but the completed work behind looked amazing.  Encouraged we continued.

Another hour passed and we had moved to the back side of the hedge in a groove of filling the wheelbarrow, dumping it in the yard waste pile, and repeating. I had changed from using a hand trowel to using a metal rake so I could get under the hedge to pull out leaves  and branches. It was time to move back to the ground to get to the weeds so I searched for my hand trowel. It was nowhere to be found. We looked in the yard waste pile, dug through dirt in the area I had been working, and stood back to look from a distance. SO WEIRD! The trowel had vanished. I  thought about getting another trowel but this thought was replaced with the sentence “We are done for today, the trowel is lost for a reason”. Maybe the trowel being lost was a gift or a means to avoid something not wanted,  like a bee sting?

How many times in life does something happen that tells us we need to change course? That a lost tool means the tool is no longer helpful. That we are supposed to move on or change direction.  Are you holding on to things that no longer serve you or perhaps searching for a trowel that is not supposed to be found?

May you recognize when you need to change direction especially if it means avoiding a sting.

To your good health