Our fear of this unknown may cause us to resist growth, acceptance and change.

 

When Spoojack returned to his spot under the shade tree the family of small birds fluttered around him.
 
As Jimmie handed Spoojack a beer the old man could see Jimmie was still busy covering his bugs with lime. The old man had just the thing for the problem.
  
“I ever tell you about that time I tried out my brand new Polaroid spectrum color camera on you? I almost took the camera back to the store. I kept trying to take the full color pictures of you, but with you being mixed race you kept coming out black and white every time!”
  
Jimmie was caught off guard and laughed so hard he had to spit the beer out of his mouth. The two men continued to talk and laugh as the birds whittled away at the gristle.

Jimmie looked down the street and couldn’t believe his eyes. The pair with the wheel chair were on their way back. This time the thin man was pushing the chair.
 
“Spoojack, what in the world is going on, they passed by here earlier and she was pushing him! I knew he was visually impaired in high school, but now I don’t know what’s going on.”
 
“You ain’t the only one; I can’t keep up with these folks in this neighborhood. Those two push each other around in that thing all day and night. Always got on some matching get up, they call’em the Ying Yang twins.”
 
The thin man was wearing snake skin cowboy boots, short shorts, and a muscle shirt with a matching cowboy hat. His partner in crime wore a pink cowboy hat of her own with matching boots. She had two bags of groceries on her lap.
 
Spoojack tilted his head to the side.
 
“If that boy’s drawers ain’t riding up the crack of his butt my name ain’t Spoojack!”
 
Jimmie lost a mouth full of beer again. This time one of the small birds came to investigate.
 
“I tell you Jimmie, this craziness around here is better than television.”
 
“You got that right” Jimmie replied.
 
“There’s no telling what you might see around here.”
 
 The pair of cowboys made their way down the middle of the street.
 
“Now where was I? Oh yea, taking care of trees.” Spoojack gestured toward the evergreen on the corner.
 
“See that evergreen, now that’s a northern tree. Up North the sun doesn’t shine in the winter enough for the trees. Don’t have to worry about sun scalding at all. Now the problem is not enough sun.”
 
 
“See Jimmie it’s always going to be something, you just have to understand that, accept it and then do something about it! Yes suh.”
 
Spoojack closed his eyes and nodded his head in agreement with himself.
Jimmie turned to look at Spoojack just in time to see a small bird struggle to fly back to the nest with a piece of Spoojack’s cooking in its mouth.
 
“Anyhow, the branches of the evergreen work together so that they all can get enough sunlight during the winter months. The branches at the bottom agree to grow outwards toward the sun and not overtake the branches on top. The branches on top agree to grow upwards so the sun can reach the outward branches below.”
 
“You see son, the evergreen learned thousands of years ago, the only way to survive the hard times is to grow outwards and upwards.”
 
“Just like the tree across the street you played in as a youngster. You were saying how it’s different now from when you used to climb it. Everything grows and changes, we have to grow and change with it.”
 
“When we start expecting things to stay the same we fill our wagons with suffering.”
 
Once we feel secure in our general understanding, to challenge that understanding is a step toward the unknown; a step away from our sense of self, our sense of security.
 
Jimmie became aware that our fear of this unknown may cause us to resist growth, acceptance and change. 

The absence of this awareness was at the root of his frustration and suffering.
 
The eventual actualization of his new found understanding would result in Jimmie finding himself amongst the branches of his favorite tree once again.  
 
As he read Hanh he would be further challenged to use his new understanding to show acceptance and compassion for those still suffering in its absence.
 
Jimmie walked out of the brightly colored home and past the neatly cropped bushes into the……

Reviews

[Black Orchid]

I really enjoyed reading this. Your characters are interesting intriguing and your writing was descriptive yet concise. Looking forward to seeing more