Beneath the surface

What looks like nothing

You know how there are some places in the world that look completely empty for months?

Like when Spring comes and you look down and all you see is just dirt. Maybe a few scattered leaves here and there from last year’s fall. Few sticks here and there.

You might be walking past them every morning on your way to work and not even stop and think about it twice. You might glance over, see that nothing has really changes, and then keep on walking.

But then one day you glance down and something catches your eye, a little tiny green shoot. And then all of a sudden a week later there are five of them.

And a month later, the whole place is full of wildflowers, and it’s almost impossible to remember how the place used to look like. Dirt, leaves, and sticks.

I used to think that this is the beginning of it all.

The first leaf.
The first yellow flower popping through.
The first thing anyone could point and say “See, it’s growing!”

But then as I was scrolling online, I learned something wild.
Some seeds can take years before they come to fruition, germinate.

Years.

They’re alive the whole time, but just under ground. Not late to anything. Heck, they’re not even confused, spending all those years wondering why the flowers beside them seems to have life figured out.

They’re just waiting for the right conditions that the surface can’t see.

Some of them need enough warmth, others enough rain. Some wait patiently until the light finally reaches the forest floor because some older tree has fallen.

There are some seeds that wait until there is a fire, so that after it they can finally bloom.

And yet, the ground does not give us any clues about any of this.

You can stand over it every day and come to the wrong conclusion.

“There’s nothing happening here.” Except under you there is a tiny seed just waiting for it’s turn.

Nature is like that. It’s not interested in correcting you either.

The forest is not out there putting up signs or sending us smoke signals that there is something growing. Nature is just nature and forest is just a forest.

And they will keep doing what they always do. I like this about it.

We as humans are always giving nature the benefit of the doubt, think back to January when the tree branches were naked, you didn’t just assume that the tree had given up.

Of when the flower bed is not filled with different colors right after the snow melts, you don’t think twice about it.

You know there are seasons and that it always seems like nature does these things in the middle of the night, when no one can catch it doing it.

One day you just wake up and there they are.

But, roots don’t become less important because they’re underground. The seed doesn’t become any less alive because you can’t see it pushing through the dirt yet.

This cycle makes perfect sense when it comes to nature.

But then we look in the mirror and everything changes.

There are few months that are slower and maybe dimmer than usual. And we start keeping tabs about it all.

Nothing is changing.
I’m still in the middle of this mess.
I thought I’d be longer, further, happier by now.

And we start believing the story on the surface. Mainly because it’s the only part we see. And visible things feel… oh, so very convincing.

You count the days, you measure the failures, you even take pictures along the way. It’s all you see.

But, roots are deeper and harder to break.

Nobody goes out in the nature and takes a picture of a seeds root system because it’s going hard today.

We only see the highlight reel in mot cases. But every blossom owes its existence to work that spend a long time invisible.

I planted some mums and sunflower seeds once.

And every morning I’d somehow manage to wander over with a cup of coffee and stare at that parch of dirt as if my attention might speed things up.

It didn’t.

Every day it was still dirt.
Today, tomorrow, and the day after.

I felt embarrassed and laughed at myself because I know how seeds work. I know they don’t just happen over night (unless you know something??).

But as it turns out, knowing something and feeling it are two completely different skills. Shucks.

One day I was about to head out for my 3k walk and happened to glance over and saw the tiniest bit of green pushing through.

It would had been so easy to call this part the beginning. But I think we both know that it wasn’t.

It was just the first day that I could see the story that has been going on for weeks. The seed had been living for far longer.

I think us as humans have a bit of a habit of treating visibility as if it’s the same thing as progress. But it really isn’t.

They could be neighbors perhaps.

But that’s the thing about nature, it’s not trying to be impressive to wow us over with it’s crazy deadlines.

Truth is, every single forest on this planet took decades becoming a forest. Even trees add one ring at a time and never try to signal you how many rings it has inside of it.

For us, seeing the hills filled with wildflowers in April feels so sudden because just a few months back it was all dirt and we were cuddled inside with hot beverages in your hands, binge watching our shows.

But it’s not sudden to the soil.

That’s another thing I love about going for a hike in the woods. You realize how little the surface moss tells you. A little patch of ground can look normal, but under it there is so much more going on.

A single fallen log might be covered in moss before any human ever notices. You might be walking past the same place for weeks, thinking nothing has changes, and then meanwhile an entire season has rearranged itself under your feet.

It’s kind of comforting, ain’t it?

Maybe because everything and everyone asks for receipts these days, “visible proof,” of success and failure.

Proof that you’re improving, you’re succeeding, that you’re becoming a better version of yourself, that something is happening with your life.

But the forest is not interested in proving anything. It’s always there, doing what it does best, growing.

And some days, sure, you can see it. Some days you can’t.

But neither changes the truth, really.

It’s not a post about how “everything will bloom eventually,” because even nature doesn’t make promises like that.

Storms happen, horrible droughts happen, natural disasters, sink holes… somethings just don’t survive.

We see it too when we go out in the woods. Some trees stand tall, but then there is one that didn’t. Covered in moss.

Woods show you a different way of looking at what appears as if nothing has changed. They like to leave room for possibilities. New things.

And I think it’s such a subtle difference, it’s way less demanding that what we ask from ourselves.

There is no rush to say growth is over because we see a tiny new leaf forming.

It makes me wonder what would happen if we borrowed this habit every once in while. Let ourselves enjoy the journey, the root growing, before we jump into conclusions about our own journey.

You have to be just a little suspicious about first impressions. Because they’re never the whole story. That’s why they tell us to “never judge a book by it’s cover.”

Because a flowerbed might look completely empty and still be full of something.
A branch can look naked in January, while Spring is already taking place, and the tree is feeding itself so it can get ready to bloom.

A seed can spend days, weeks, tears beneath the ground without becoming any less of a seed.

Just looking at the surface, you can rarely tell the whole story. Which is why kindness matters, we don’t know what anyone is going through deep within.

Every single spring proves this also. But now it’s summer.

The woods are full of moss and grass and different animals frolicking.
Wildflowers are pushing through concrete and lean into trails.
Leaves didn’t exist just a few funny months ago but now they offer shade for us and clap every time the wind pushes through.

It’s so easy to look all that luscious greenery and forget that it spend months looking like nothing at all, all while internally getting ready for this exact moment.

The forest, the nature, the ground… it was never empty.
We were just a tad bit too early.

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