I’ve been slowly reclaiming garden beds that have been (ahem) a bit neglected.  Last year I did a huge overhaul of the one between my house and the patio.  But it was a bit hard to tell because tons of weeds had grown and hidden many of the plants.

I took out the 5 foot tall weeds that had somehow taken root there.  Ahhhhh.  Now there’s some space.  I can see a bit better.  Dig around to get roots out, start on the next size weeds, and now I see the rose bushes.  And the sage that hadn’t any light because it was hidden by two of the giant weeds. It felt like I could see it breathing a sigh of relief and stretching toward the sun.

Now it’s looking pretty good.  I’m actually down to the smaller stuff.  The grass that’s interwoven with the day lilies – their leaves looking so much alike.  And the short annual weeds that always seem to find a way to grow (there’s a lesson in there, I’m thinking).

Now I can really see how healthy – or not – my plants are.  The roses are looking a bit scraggly.  The day lilies look wonderfully healthy.  The cone flowers are still alive, as is the sage, even though it’s a bit worse for the wear from being in the shade.

And then I look at the clematis.  A lot of it looks dead.  The part that’s alive has beautiful blossoms on it.  I never know whether I’m supposed to trim it in the winter or not.  So I don’t.  And now I’m wondering if I should have.

But I’ve never done it before.  Maybe this was just a bad winter.  Or perhaps all the cool rain we had in what was supposed to be spring made this plant late in perking back up.

I pull on one of the dead stems.  As I do, I find that it’s longer than I realized.  I keep pulling.  The rest of it is underneath the back landing.

When I get the rest of the stem into the light, I see that it’s actually alive.  With a ton of buds on it.  Even though it’s been in mostly shade up to now.  The leaves are a bit smaller and not too perky, as they’ve missed the sun.  But hey…there are leaves and flower buds.  And almost as many as the main plant.

I found another whole stem of this plant!

It’s funny, isn’t it?  How sometimes the beautiful thing we’re looking for can be hiding in plain sight? That clematis stem was right underneath that landing the whole time.  Flowers, just waiting for me to notice them.  Right underfoot.  I just didn’t see them until I really looked.  And I had to pull out some weeds before I could even get to the point of looking.

Life’s like that too, sometimes.  We’re looking for something.  Want something.  Something good.  Beautiful.  Meaningful.  And it’s right there.  Hiding beneath the surface.

Sometimes that surface is an illness.  A job loss.  A story we tell ourselves.  Something big, like those 5-foot tall weeds I had to take out.  They didn’t just pull out either.  I had to dig them and hack at the roots.  Sometimes the things on the surface of our lives are that way.  Easy to see.  Not easy to get rid of.

But once we do, we can start to see.  And start to clear away other stuff too.  The smaller things that may be blocking the sunlight.  That may be chocking off the life we’re meant to live.

And that’s when we get to the clematis.  Ready to bloom once it gets to see the light of day.  Basking in the warm sun and showing its full beauty.

There’s been a lot of this in my life over the last year – weeding, pruning, cultivating.  Some has been fun, and some painful.  Some has been committing to the work every day, whether I see flowers blooming or not.  And every once in a while, I see something take root.  Bud.  And even start to bloom.

I’d love you to see that too.  The best thing that may be hiding in plain sight.  Maybe it’s time for you to do some weeding, pruning, or cultivating.  Maybe it’s time to find the beauty hiding right beneath the surface by doing some digging.  It’s there.  Waiting for you to find it and bring it out into the light.

You ready?

Do you have something you’d like to clear away so you can see the beauty beneath the surface?  Leave a comment.