Growing peas and boys Posted on June 25, 2017 by admin 5 As I gently held the fragile pea shoots close to the supporting wire and willed them to grab on, I was reminded of my teenage sons. As they grow, they reach out in all directions seeking handholds to help them along the way. It’s my job as a parent to make sure they hang on in the right places. They can get tangled up with distracting bushes and other riotous gangly green pea shoots. Some even fall all the way back down to the ground when they can’t find any support; those plants don’t die, they just creep off again, often in the wrong direction, horizontal instead of vertical. And really, there’s nothing wrong with that, it just takes these wayward shoots a bit longer to reach the sun and maturity. The good news is that they do all seem to get there in the end, producing lovely, plumb, pea-filled pods of goodness. I feel a little silly comparing something so transient, and perhaps trivial, as pea plants to my robust, inquiring, amazing boys. A quiet morning in the garden away from the telephone and internet and other life detritus, will do that.
As I gently held the fragile pea shoots close to the supporting wire and willed them to grab on, I was reminded of my teenage sons. As they grow, they reach out in all directions seeking handholds to help them along the way. It’s my job as a parent to make sure they hang on in the right places. They can get tangled up with distracting bushes and other riotous gangly green pea shoots. Some even fall all the way back down to the ground when they can’t find any support; those plants don’t die, they just creep off again, often in the wrong direction, horizontal instead of vertical. And really, there’s nothing wrong with that, it just takes these wayward shoots a bit longer to reach the sun and maturity. The good news is that they do all seem to get there in the end, producing lovely, plumb, pea-filled pods of goodness.
