Patience

Some might call it neglect.

But I learned from an article in the San Francisco Chronicle that the spice cardamom is the seed pod from cilantro.  Huh!  So as my cilantro plants bolted towards the heavens, I resisted the urge to clean up the garden and rip them out.   I let them simmer, and slowly the little hard green seeds adorning the umbrella-like tips of the plant turned golden brown.

They taste like a far-off cousin of some citrus.  I’ll use them in my next roast chicken.

So here’s to letting things go … really go.  It’s been a theme of mine lately.  I took the summer off from “being creative” and just decided to be.  I needed to recharge my batteries and decide on a new direction (or perhaps re-commit myself to the direction I was on.)  Many of the seeds that I’ve planted along the way, both physically in the case of my carrots and beets, and metaphorically in the case of magazines pitched and cancer contacts made, are bearing fruit now.

There’s a lesson in there, I think.