A rolling stone gathers no moss.  The other day as I was tending to my chores this proverb occurred to me.  I was cleaning the goat pen when a moss-covered rock (in the retaining wall) caught my eye.  I have a natural affinity for mosses.  Always have since a young age.  They are complex in their simplicity, adding character and life to the hard cold surface of the stone.  They are a feast for the senses.  The feel of them is luxuriant.  The color is a vibrant contrast to the gray.  The smell is earthy.  I can only imagine the wonders of the microscopic world hidden among the miniature forests.  Ahh...I digress.  Back to the proverb. 

The proverb is an old one.  A metaphor for someone who doesn't stay still long enough to gather responsibilities.  Someone rolling through life without a care, without a burden?  Without a job?  A vagabond?  Or someone who doesn't stagnate?  Someone who is on the go learning and growing? I don't know exactly and I'm sure Wikipedia holds the answer.  But for my purpose today the metaphor and my visual of the thickly covered stone in the wall have a particular meaning. 

I am that moss-covered stone in the wall.  I'm not rolling one bit.  I am rock solid so to say.  I am staying put.  I have layers of lichens and moss covering my surface.  My moss is earned and slow-growing.  My moss is my story.  I do not roll like I once did.  I have been placed on this wall. An integral part of its structure.  Without me, the wall may weaken and collapse.  Without my moss, it may lose some of its character.  I am more than an individual.  I am part of a family and a community. Some days I may not relish that fact.    Maybe sometimes I fantasize about getting in my car, shutting off my phone, and just driving far away.  Rolling away and shedding my moss, the layers of responsibility, the good and the bad that make up the complexity of my seemingly simple life.  I am no longer young.  Nor am I old.  I am here in the middle.  Pondering my existence, my life, my choices, and the world around me.  I am bored and burdened at times.  Deliriously happy and enthusiastic at others.  But mostly I just am.

I JUST AM!  Three little words.  So simple my newly first grader can read them.  But can she comprehend the weight of them?  The hugeness of what they mean to me? 

 I am a daughter who cares tremendously about her aging, ailing father. I cherish our time together.   I marvel at his seasons of life.  The dense forest that has grown on his rock.  His stories have shaped him and provided fascinating layers.  His moss is so dense and vibrant from decades of not rolling.   I can only aspire to have richness such as his.

 I am a sister who feels like she has to hold it together so the others can lose it.  I function with a quiet sensibility never faltering.   I feel compelled to live up to their expectations of being the responsible one.  But little do they know that that colony of moss is making its way into my cracks and threatening to split me apart.

 I am a mother marveling at each new milestone while stagnating under the tedium of day-to-day routine.  Ahh...the contrast children bring to your life. Our greatest joys at times and our biggest complaints at others.  They constantly force us to grow and learn. To question everything. Hopefully to become a better version of ourselves.

 I am a wife forever in a dance with a spouse who has his layers of moss slowly growing.  His kind thrived under similar yet unique conditions. Our rocks are side by side in the wall; leaning and pushing on one another but yet our exposure to the world around us is complimentary in its difference.  We share the space where two circles meet in a Venn diagram.  Parts of our rocks overlap and share moss while the rest are left to be colonized independently.  

 I am a friend offering and receiving. My friends are the ocean where my river ends (that's a whole new metaphor to explore).  But we are fluid.  Each of us tends to our moss growth separately but takes time to share the slow process that shapes us individually.  We ebb and flow but we are always joined.  

The list of who I am can go on and on....more than daughter, sister, mother, wife... neighbor, teacher, farmer, environmentalist.  I am a provider, taker, survivor, entertainer.  The crazy aunt, eccentric friend, disappointing daughter-in-law.  Plain Jane underachiever, beautiful, over-educated baker of cookies. Everyone has an opinion - good, bad, or indifferent.  I am something and someone completely different depending on who you ask.  But at the end of the day, the only thing that matters is that I know what I truly am - a moss-covered rock - a sturdy foundation for all the little things to grow and flourish (so many little things that go unseen).

It has taken me decades to realize my importance.  I may not be grand or I may be larger than life. I am richly layered and I matter to people.  One day I'm the hero tending to an injured neighbor and the next I'm mom hot-gluing beads to a crown.  But the beauty of my realization is this....we all have a myriad of little things that make us grandly unique.  So now when I meet a new person I simply cannot accept what I see because I know everyone is complex just like me.

Photo of the moss-covered wall by LouAnne O'Hora