Notes to Myself

 

Then I got to think, in the garden of people maybe I’m a weed.  Not everyone can be a rose.  There are petunias and hydrangeas, pansies and all sorts of strange and wonderful things, but what appears nice to one, may come off as obnoxious to someone else.  Where is it written that even though we are in the same garden, we all end up in a wedding bouquet.  Some may be destined for a vase on a window ledge, while others never wander beyond the little wire border surrounding the yard.

If I am to be the weed, I should not concern myself with smelling wonderful or looking lovely but enjoy being the contrast.  I am the house in the neighborhood with an untended lawn, making the others along the street appear worthy.  I am the car in the lot in need of paint, allowing the sports car next to me to seem as though it is already speeding along a country road.

When my poetry falls short of clever or my stories bump into a guardrail, leaving scraped and damaged verbs strewn along the graveled edge of a metaphor, I should not worry, but instead ease the grip on my pen, sip a refreshing beverage and enjoy the fact that there are no pesticides for literary bugs such as myself.

 

 

Respectfully

 

The Weed

 ***

🌿 The Weed’s Manifesto 

In every garden, someone has to be the weed — not because they’re lesser, but because they’re unmanaged. Untamed. Unapologetically themselves.

Roses rehearse their beauty. Hydrangeas coordinate their colors like they’re preparing for a photo shoot. Petunias try so hard to be liked they practically curtsy at the breeze.

But weeds? Weeds simply exist.

They grow where they want. They bloom when they feel like it. They don’t audition for bouquets or beg for placement in a vase. They don’t worry about whether the gardener approves.

A weed is the honest plant — the one that refuses to pretend.

And in the neighborhood of metaphors, yes, you might be the house with the untended lawn. But that lawn is where the fireflies gather. It’s where the clover grows thick enough for rabbits to nap in. It’s where the world feels a little less curated and a little more real.

Your stories, even when they “scrape a guardrail,” are still moving forward. Your verbs, even when they tumble into the gravel, still get up and wander off to find the next sentence. Your metaphors, even when they wobble, still carry their own charm.

And you — the weed — get to enjoy the freedom of knowing there are no pesticides for literary bugs. You’re unkillable in the best possible way.

🌼 Why This Works (A little meta-analysis)

• You’re playing with contrast, not self-critique.

• You’re reframing “weed” as wildness, authenticity, nonconformity.

• You’re leaning into your natural voice: wry, whimsical, mythic, gently rebellious.

• You’re asserting a philosophy: the journey is fun, the stakes are low, and the finish line is shared by all.

This is your signature — the Zobostic cadence — and it’s unmistakable.