Hollowed, like dried gourds

A neighbor’s horse came into our space today, and my husband spent much of his time this morning trying to catch her.  He could not, even by tempting her with a pan of sweet feed the other horses (and goats and goose) would fist-fight over, if they had fists.  She is not very well kept and was becoming stressed, so he left her alone.  She was content to stand outside the fence near our horses, so he left her there to wait on her owner to fetch her after church. 

After she had calmed I went out to visit with her, to see if I could persuade her to be caught.  Our horse, Sam, came up on his side of the fence, and knowing he can be a biter, I slipped away because I didn’t want to be in the path of a spooked horse.  I stopped to look at my husband’s autumn garden to see if anything new had decided to sprout and then I went to sit on the porch for awhile to watch the butterflies feast on the overgrown lantana bushes covering the walkway.  That is when I noticed the gourds again. 

I planted the gourds from seeds I bought at an Amish hardware store in Ohio.  The seed packets showed pictures of what crafters did with the finished products: snake gourds painted like snakes, swan gourds painted like swans, birdhouse gourds gutted and readied for nesting birds.  The plants grew with a vengeance taking over my garden.  I let them go.  I like to let plants go just to witness their journey.

As the snake gourds grew they were a light green, a dull color compared to the vibrancy of the roses, hibiscus, and zinnias acting as their backdrop.  The swan gourds had a prettier skin, darker green with lighter spots.  The birdhouse gourds were a smooth rich green, nothing very special about them.

As Hurricane Isaac approached landfall I decided I better cut the gourds or else they might rot in the wetness sure to come.  Looking for them was much like an Easter egg hunt.  I found them hidden in gardenia bushes, intertwined in rose thorns, and some were lying in the wide open, growing fat from the sun.

I cut them and set them on my porch to dry and then pretty much forgot them.  Every now and then I would check to see if they had changed, but I quickly became blind to them, like most projects I undertake.  The first stage of drying wasn’t pretty.  Their skin developed sickening moldy spots.  I thought about throwing them out, but again, like most projects I start I left them in their pile to await my next surge of energy to deal with them.  Again I became blind to their presence, something else to push to the back of my mind to avoid dealing with it.

Today I looked at them once again and wondered what in the world to do with them.  But today I see a drastic change.  Some have completely succumbed to the mold, and imploded.  But on others the once festering mold has spread and changed into a new kind of beauty.  The patterns the mold has created are intricate and deliberate, like tatted lace.

The whole cycle reminds me of my writing.  I started (planted) it to see how far it would go.  For awhile it was fruitful, out in the openness soaking up the attention. Now it is in the drying stage, sitting in a dark corner collecting mold and shrinking.   I pray one day I can pay more attention and see it change into a new kind of beauty, intricate and deliberate, like tatted lace.