This weekend and last have been devoted to landscaping as we prepared for and now clean up from the replacement of our septic tank and the line to the leach field. All the digging, potting, raking, shoveling, and picking rocks lends a large quantity of time for thinking. The more repetitive tasks almost become meditative.
Thinking about the changes in the yard brought me to thinking about change in life in general. Why is some change anticipated to be good and other bad? Some change has obvious immediate good/bad quality. Being convicted of a crime and going to jail. Bad. Winning the lottery. Good. But other change seems to have a good/bad quality depending upon how you think about it.
The septic tank replacement is a good example. Having a huge hole dug in the yard under a large flower bed, part of the driveway, and the main walkway to the house means that there is going to be some work to do on our part and the rest of it is going to cost some money. Even though neither one of us would choose this as the way to spend two August weekends and half a dozen evenings, we didn't moan about it too much. Why? Probably partly because we both do enjoy working in the yard and improving our home. But also because this would be an opportunity to make some changes that we never would have put into motion otherwise. All that asphalt that the previous owners needed for snowmachine trailers or whatever -- some of that's gone. The pretty campanula that became an aggressive ground cover -- buried with the new tank. The dry creek bed that we admired on the garden tour last month -- it's inspiration is meandering through the renewed flower bed. The possibility of having another sewer backup into the basement -- not while we live here.
The septic tank replacement is a good example. Having a huge hole dug in the yard under a large flower bed, part of the driveway, and the main walkway to the house means that there is going to be some work to do on our part and the rest of it is going to cost some money. Even though neither one of us would choose this as the way to spend two August weekends and half a dozen evenings, we didn't moan about it too much. Why? Probably partly because we both do enjoy working in the yard and improving our home. But also because this would be an opportunity to make some changes that we never would have put into motion otherwise. All that asphalt that the previous owners needed for snowmachine trailers or whatever -- some of that's gone. The pretty campanula that became an aggressive ground cover -- buried with the new tank. The dry creek bed that we admired on the garden tour last month -- it's inspiration is meandering through the renewed flower bed. The possibility of having another sewer backup into the basement -- not while we live here.
So because the change - even though a lot of work, a lot of money, and a lot of time - brings us multiple things that we call good, we can ignore the bad -- like the cost, the time doing manual labor, the loss of time for biking and kayaking. So if we could think similarly about other changes, we could call them good, too, and not bad. I guess there's my challenge the next time my husband, my boss, or life throws some change at me that doesn't seem very good at first. Isn't that called finding the silver lining?
