Seeds

 “What didn’t you do to bury me
but you forgot I was a seed.”

–Dinos Christianopoulus

“They tried to bury us. They didn’t know we were seeds.”

–Mexican dicho (proverb)

Christianopoulos penned his lines in the 1930s, while the Zapatistas revised it for use in the mid-90s. They differ in important ways. The Mexican version refers to “us,” a group of people: a movement, while Christanopoulus refers to a single person. Then there’s the seed part. In the Mexican one, they didn’t “know” we were seeds, whereas in the Christainopoulus one, the person just “forgot” he was a seed. Both speak to a sort of rebirth from being treated poorly: you were buried by someone or something, but you emerged victorious from a seed. You can’t be gotten rid of.

For my purposes, the Mexican version is the one that fits the best – in my case “they” is life. It’s treating me poorly. I’ve been buried by the loss of our dog. Which is to be expected, I guess. I’ll grow through it, it will just take time. Part of that healing is the memorial garden we’re creating for all five of our dogs—we are planting trees and shrubs and will scatter wildflower seeds as well. I’ve also been buried by an ill-timed knee injury (is there ever a good time for a knee injury?).

But what I’ve also been doing while off my feet is writing. I wrote a draft of the first chapter of my new book, and worked on it in fits and spurts over the past month, adding something here, taking something out there. Working in a quote here, paraphrasing there. I sent my final polished version to K to edit, and it got, well, eviscerated. I appreciated it, though, because K did it in the nicest way possible. There were no personal attacks (I wouldn’t have expected them, anyway). It was all about improving the writing.

It turned out that I had written my first chapter with bits of the following chapters included in it. I had so many things to say that I wrote a 6500-word essay. After K’s edits, though, I realized there was no strong throughline. There were pieces that stuck out like sore thumbs and didn’t really fit. I was going off on tangents that didn’t work with the overall theme of the chapter. What was interesting was that I didn’t see these missteps until K pointed them out to me. Then they were glaringly obvious, and I wondered why I hadn’t noticed them before.

So I rewrote it. Cut it down to 4800 words. Completely rearranged it. I kept all the pieces I cut out because they are seeds for new chapters. Text about “performing” mental illness. About walking and the nature cure (best for depression and anxiety, not so much for mood disorders). About cognitive behavioural therapy (not a fan) and person-first language around mental illness (also not a fan but you do you). About how to frame ambition when you’re mentally ill.

I’m excited about these seeds. I feel like I have a foothold on the next chapters, that there is fresh soil there to germinate new essays. I had thought I had grown a garden in my first chapter, but it was a wild and untended one that needed pruning and shaping. Now that it’s looking it’s best, it’s time to move on to the next one, starting from seed.

It wasn’t just “life” that didn’t know I was a seed – I didn’t know I was, either. But I am painstakingly growing out from under the loss of my dog and my knee injury. At the same time, I’m growing through the mess of words I have for this second book, pulling the nutrients I need to shape each chapter on the page. My cotelydons have emerged from the soil, and I can now use sunlight to help them grow. It’s a milestone on my journey to a finished book. I just hope I have enough seeds to feed the whole project.