There is a Victoria Lilly that can be 10 m across and hold the weight of a small human. That fact came to me in the Daily Atom- a science email I get throughout the week. This struck me as a wow moment. Lilly pads are the resting area for frogs and bugs. They are green, glorious launch sites of many a hopping or flying fauna.
Great painters have painted them in detail. Photographers have captured their subtle strength on Kodachrome. They seem like the scenery, yet they are vital to the lives of so many. They seem still and weak upon the swampy or clear waters of lagoons and lakes. Yet they are floating masterpieces.
Somedays I need the Lilly-pads to anchor me so I can focus. Or to give me my footing to leap to the next. They are very much part of my classroom routine- brain breaks, mindful moments, exit tickets. But, they are more than that. They are symmetrical and circular, they are flat and secure. They absorb the light and soak the moisture and all the while survive in a calm demeanor.
Appreciate the Lilly-pads- the moments where you can pause and look around. The moments where you can stretch yourself thin and conquer your routine, or provide a resting spot for others to do the same. Outcome not goal. Float. Grow. Photosynthesize. Flower. Rest. It is a tactic very much human, yet remaining in the flora realm.
I appreciate the calm. The mindful. The orientation where I can thrive. I a Lilly-pad as much as the frog leaping atop its surface. I a writer, a teacher- more importantly, a mother, a wife. Identity vast, process expansive because it is forever warping and changing as I do. Yet my core- is simple, circular and steady. This I believe is the embodiment of growth.
