Weeds: A Story and Thoughts on Life
For Anna Banana, my fierce fighter of a sister
Tito didn’t believe in ghosts, but after the last three nights, he began to have doubts. He was normally a heavy sleeper and over the years he had grown accustomed to the train that ran past his shack of a house. As the train blitzed on by every few hours, he’d just snooze on through it. But the past three nights something strange out there had been waking him up.
As he came out of his slumber that first night, he realized someone was out there walking around near the tracks. Each step on the track ballast was soft, but in the night’s silence, they crunched as the foot made contact with the crushed stone. Then came the humming, hollow but serene in its melody.
The past three nights he tossed and turned in bed, tracking the path of what was out there. Each night at midnight, the faint footfalls sounded in the distance. With each passing minute, the steps grew just a bit louder until ten past midnight when the humming began.
That first night he was convinced a homeless woman was out there until he heard the steps on the track ballast that covered his backyard. The song and steps seemed to go through the enclosing chain-linked fence, making its way three times around his house before leaving him sleepless until dawn.
This night, it was a minute before midnight and he couldn’t afford another night without sleep, so when it hit midnight and he heard the approaching footsteps, he sat up in bed and waited. At eight past midnight, he got up, crouched his way to the window that looked into the backyard, and peeked his head out, waiting for whatever it was to begin its first lap. When he heard the steps over the stones in his backyard, he moved, swung the door open, and jumped outside.
“Hey,” said Tito. “¡Oye! I can’t sleep with all this racket and I have work to find tomorrow morning.” He didn’t end there and went on, pouring out all of his worries. “My bills are stacking up. My rent is late. And if I don’t get sleep — because of you — well, then I won’t find work and I’ll be homeless. And if I’m homeless,” he trailed off, catching his breath. Tito realized no one was out there and wondered if he was losing his mind, but before too long, he heard her.
“¿Y qué? Why does it matter if you’re homeless?”
The response didn’t startle him. Her voice lulled his frustrations so that when he turned to face her, an abuela, he spoke at ease and with weary honesty.
“Then, I’ll be on the streets. And I won’t be happy.”
“Are you happy now?” she asked, stepping towards him. Her silver hair was as bright as moonlight.
“No, but that’s not the point,” he shot back. “I just know that if I don’t pay the rent this time, I’ll be kicked out and I will have nothing. And how will I be happy if I have nothing?”
“Follow me,” she said.
Tito winced with each barefooted step on the stones and the spiky weeds that grew through them. She took him further into his backyard, which wasn’t large by any standard, but just enough for one person. For the years he had been living there, he hardly spent any time in his backyard. Walking in it, now, under the moonlight, following a silver-haired abuela in a white dress embroidered with flowers in earthy yellows, aquas, teals, and chili pepper reds, his backyard felt unfamiliar, but still, vaguely like home.
“If you can be rid of all of the weeds here,” she said, “I will give you everything you need to be happy.”
He knew there was no reason to question her. Something in his gut, something in the depths of his being told him that if he did what she said, it would come true, that it must come true, and he was determined to find out.
The abuela no longer visited him after that night, but he did not forget about what she had said. He spent his mornings searching for work to little success. With a belly half full of lunch, he would then work on his backyard in the afternoons and early evenings.
The first day he pulled out the weeds by hand. In his anger at the day’s failure in finding work, he feverishly yanked each one that crossed his path. As he ripped out the weeds, they sliced his palms, which only stoked him further. By the end of the day, his hands ached and were covered in cuts.
The second day Tito wore gloves. At the end of the day, he stood smirking at the weed-less land. But that night, the abuela didn’t come.
On the third day, he awoke to find new weeds had sprouted through the stones. He realized, then, that pulling them wasn’t going to work, as they’d only grow back.
The following days he tried everything he could think of to kill the weeds. He showered herbicide, but that only caused the next generation of weeds to grow back thicker and thornier. He soaked his backyard with gasoline and lit the drenched weeds ablaze, but eventually more sprouted through the charred stones. He removed all of the track ballast in his backyard, dug into the earth and shuffled the soil around, tearing at the roots, but even then, the weeds came back anew. Days and countless failed attempts had gone by, but every other morning, the weeds would be poking out of the earth.
One morning, after Tito had exhausted all ideas, he sighed and shook his head in defeat. That night in bed, as he stared at the ceiling, he heard her in the distance. He rose in excitement, but his body sagged as he remembered his failures. He slouched his way to his backyard and sat cross-legged on the earth. Weeds cut at his bare legs, but he didn’t care then. He just sat in silence, listening to the abuela ’s melody as it grew louder.
“¿Y qué?” she finally asked.
“I failed,” Tito sighed. “I couldn’t do it.”
“What did you try?”
He listed each attempt, but nothing, he said, worked. They always came back. “They always came back,” he repeated, softer. “Always. Maybe I’m not meant to be happy.”
Remember this, she said that night. We cannot pull out our weeds. We cannot burn or poison them. Maybe they will be gone for a time, but we cannot expect to be forever rid of our weeds through these destructive actions. We can, though, care for our land. We can plant seeds, water them, and over time, stalks will rise out of the earth and bloom into a bounty of flowers. We can plant seeds and grow beautiful flowers to cover our earth — and that will drive out the weeds.
Like Tito, we all have our weeds. Our metaphorical weeds, though, exist in our mind. These are the weeds of doubt, anger, anxiety, jealousy, and hatred, among other negative emotions. Sometimes we don’t even realize they are there, but they are, marring the soil of our mind, unbeknown to us, but influencing our thoughts, words, actions, and behaviors.
Sometimes all it takes is time spent in self-reflection to realize that there in the backyard of our minds the soil has been corrupted by weeds. What, then, can we do if we strive to be the best version of ourselves? What, then, can we do as we strive for meaning in life?
We grow flowers in the soil of our mind — by having good thoughts, by speaking good words, and by doing good deeds. These are the seeds that, if we nurture through consistency, grow into flowers. These are the seeds that, if grown into flowers, help to create an internal world teeming with beauty, one where our self-growth can flourish.
But while having good thoughts, speaking good words, and doing good deeds sound simple enough, practicing them can be a bit more of a challenge, especially when negative thoughts seem to sprout out of nowhere and without our control. That’s normal. That’s human. And that should always be expected. While we may never be able to control everything out there in the world — nor the world of our mind — we will always have the fundamental freedom to control our response.
A judgemental thought may spawn out of the blue, or we may spurt out something mean, or we may unintentionally hurt someone. Shit happens and we’re only human. But when these reactions, which are influenced by the weeds of our mind, rise to the surface, we should respond to them with love and compassion. Ignoring these negative reactions is like being blind to the weeds in our backyard. Shaming, blaming, or attacking ourself are ineffective attempts at killing the weeds. But responding to these reactions with understanding and an intention to learn and grow will yield a field flowing with flowers.
I have found that maintaining positivity in my thoughts, words, and actions through difficult and frustrating times doesn’t always beget positive results in the world. But continuing to plant those seeds and continuing to care for them has its own reward. This reward exists in you and it can’t be taken away; this reward is knowing that, in spite of everything, you tried to be the best person you can be and you contributed something positive to this world, even if it’s something as tiny as a “Good afternoon. How are you doing?” That’s what matters at the end of the day. Failures and successes come and go, but how we feel about ourselves, and our words and actions — that stays with us. If we are happy with who we are, then what else do we need? If we are unhappy with who we are, then there’s nothing out there in the world that could change that.
There are many reasons to practice good thoughts, good words, and good deeds, but let’s conclude reflecting on this: doesn’t enjoying a beer with family and friends in a backyard covered in flowers sound much more appealing than chilling in an unkempt, weed-infested backyard? Yeah, I’ll take the flowers. And the beer, please.
