On Pruning

A woman came into Sidebloom the other day. A last minute gift for a friend, she says. I ask her how New York was, remembering our last conversation just before she left a few months ago. It’s been so good, a really good time away, but now that I’m back, I’ve just been exhausted. I’m picking up a purging project - unloading all the stuff I’ve been carrying over the years. Hoarding, trauma, childhood. I just have so. much. stuff. and it’s hard for me to let go. But I need to let go. She grazes her hand across some new bandanas in a basket. As I listen, I’m seeing the hacking away of a tree, all of her wild, unwieldy branches lush with leaves tumbling down with each thud of the ax till she’s left bare, a trunk too frail to have been carrying the weight that was. Ask any gardener and she’ll tell you pruning is essential. It allows light in to stimulate growth and prevent disease. It allows nutrients to go to their proper places and strengthen the foundation so what grows can be even more productive. It must be so hard, I say, to have to prune away what feels like an extension of yourself. I can’t even begin to imagine how painful that is. I give her the imagery and tell her that I trust something fresh and beautiful is on the other side - the pruning promises so.