It’s a Jungle Out There

We bought a jungle.

It’s more than six acres of bush, rocks, spiky plants and creeping vines. There’s a smattering of papaya and pineapple with tigers in between, as well as a few bushes of pigeon peas and a lemon tree or two.

When the sun sets, birds twitter and insects chirp. By day or by night, heat or lesser-heat, the air is fresh, and the breeze seductively whispers “breathe me.”

One day, it will be a farm. One day, it will be something productive.

The other night my husband and I sat on the concrete edge of the above ground swimming pool that could be filled with water only after digging up the water pump. The unfinished cabin was in the corner of our vision, the untamed land filling our view in front of us.

To me, the land looked like our lives: Victor is 6 feet deep in law school; I’m pregnant; we’re raising teens; apartment hopping; visa applications are open but nothing is submitted. Everything is wild and unfinished.

Everything is bursting with hope, if we have the eyes to see it. But also there’s the possibility of never arriving at where we want to be. What if we blow it? What if we should cash in now? I ask those questions of life. My husband doesn’t ask those questions. His spirit is indomitable.

So as we sat on the edge of that dry pool with its peeling blue paint, looking out over our land, it calmed my heart to dream with him, to see what this place can be if we work hour by hour, day by day. To also, metaphorically, see what our lives can be.

We hate the land enough that we want it changed. We love it enough we will put in the work to change it.

G. K. Chesterton said that is true patriotism: loving and hating your country at the same time. And though we hate our country for its things, we don’t love our country for its things. We love it for who it is, for its essence: its United States-ness or Dominican-ness or Italy-ness or whoever. If we love it for its things there could come a day in which our love ceases; if we love it for its essence, we will never cease to fix the things we hate.

We will have hope. We will see its potential.

We’ll walk through the change process well.

Victor and I could resort to chemicals and dynamite to change the jungle. Americans, conservatives and liberals alike, could - and are - resorting to hate and fear tactics to change the things they don’t like about the United States. But toxic methods, born out of fear, not hope, not love, destroy more than they create. They violate life itself.

They violate beauty.

They violate mystery.

This jungle that we own is full of mystery, like our lives. We don’t know what the ground holds, what trials and joys await. That’s why it takes hope to see the potential. That’s why, when I don’t have hope, I grit my teeth and look for the easiest way out.

We have to trust that the black space between the stars isn’t out to get us - that we can in fact move forward in love.

When you don’t see the path, tread determinedly, but tread softly.

Last week my woodsman-of-a father-in-law drove out to see the land and showed us which plants were beneficial and which were not. It wasn’t until we got his clear that we began to clear.

In the same manner, if you don’t understand the way a spirit enters the womb of a woman with child, tread softly.

Let’s not destroy our jungle countries, whether they are 6 acres big, an island, or a quarter continent. Let’s love their essences and act accordingly.