There are three yards in my neighborhood each with the same plant growing up and around the lamppost in each of my neighbor's front yards. It's called a "clementis" I think and it's a creeping vine that gets vibrant purple blooms that cascade all over and around it at the height of it's blooming season.
Coincidentally, each of these homes sits side by side by side so it's very easy to compare the clementis as they grow.
One of the plants appears to be barely hanging on. It's dry. Its spindly arms are fragile and withered. The leaves are sparse and the flowers are few and the ones that have bloomed look awfully thirsty.
One of the plants has faired somewhat better. It's grown taller and has more pinwheel like, purple blooms sprinkled throughout the speckling leafage. Its viney arms appear more securely fixed on the white lamppost as it wriggles its way inch by inch closer and closer toward the sun.
The third clementis vine is the most beautiful of all. It's soil is moist and sprinkled with the tiny little white balls indicative of fertilizer to help give it the best chance of growing as big and strong as possible. The supple vines engulf the lamppost in a lush waterfall of greenery and purple blooms that pour all over, around and throughout the foliage, delighting from all angles as you walk by. The tendrils of the vine appear full and strong, confident as they continue their mission to scale the lamppost until there's nothing left to cling to except for bright, warm sunshine and a clear, blue sky.
It struck me the other day how all three of these plants had the exact same potential. They were made of the same stuff, probably started out around the same size and had extremely similar circumstances within which to grow. So what made such an astonishing difference between the wimpiest one and the others? Or why was the most beautiful one so significantly more profuse and verdant than the other two were?
It all comes down to who's doing the cultivating. My question is, who's cultivating you? Each of us is born and bread with unimaginable potential but often times it takes others seeing the potential and cultivating that within us that makes the difference between a seed sitting in a packet on a shelf and an incredibly amazing creation fulfilling its destiny and delighting all those that come into contact with it as they cross each other's paths.
Do you have a mentor? Do you have people cultivating the potential out of you?
Affectionately,
Rachel
