Broken Eggshells (Free Write)

 

There are cucumber and courgette seedlings in my new mini greenhouse, trying desperately to grow up to the sun. But an intruder has infiltrated their environment. It has chewed away at the leaves until one has nothing but an open stem remaining.
And I think:

I know you. I know this.
So I surround the delicate, literal manifestations of my inner child with broken eggshells and I'm reminded of how they are things to be shed for life to begin.
New life.

And that protective shell came from the mother, whom nature provides as a source of nurturing.

Sometimes that nurturing comes to us whole,

sometimes it's broken.

But both, paradoxically, are protective.

Both taught us how to survive, 
and both are things we can learn to provide for ourselves once the new leaves are given space to thrive.

Just a little nurturing around the roots,

just a little protection at the birth of who we're becoming.

Just a few broken eggshells can let us grow to face the sun, and from there we can - without doing anything - provide nourishment and nurturing for those who come after us.

Simply by being; simply by showing up.

We are strong together,

we are stronger individually.

My seedlings and I, we exist beside one another, while remaining entirely whole for ourselves.

The only way for us to learn this was to be subjected to the elements first.