This Week in Joyful Practice: Repetition

Repetition Repetition Repetition

Here is a plant that I’ve been walking by every day:

I’m sure it’s been growing in that spot for weeks, but it just recently announced itself to me, and when I approached it, I realized I had no idea what kind of plant it was.

Something about it spoke to me though: its muted colors, its furry leaves, and —especially this—the way it’s on the verge of blooming (so bracing, so tender). I remembered this prompt that Sarah shared in March:

Get to know a plant intimately. There’s a particular quince bush about a block from my house, and I check it out anytime I pass by. In the spring, I put a few branches in a vase and look at them while I’m cooking or doing dishes. In the fall, I snag a few fruits, and in the winter, I check out the parts I can’t see when it is flush with leaves in the summer. Building a relationship with a particular plant is one way to stay present, and staying present is an important part of a joyful practice.

I’ve been wondering if you, like me, might enjoy returning to earlier prompts, and the idea brought me comfort. Comfort, because: everything moves by so quickly. Comfort because: so often I encounter a creative prompt and I want to enact it, but it’s not the right moment for me, and then it just lingers in my brain, not quite forgotten, like the pile of unfolded laundry that sits on a chair my living room.

It delighted me to think about returning to past prompts rather than always generating new ones, that it might actually be generous, not lazy, to offer the same prompt multiple times.

So anyways, I passed this plant, remembered Sarah’s prompt, and decided this was my plant. I decided to include noticing the plant into my evening chores. In committing to the plant, I find myself in a brief marriage of sorts, and some developments became inevitable.

I photographed the plant. I drew the plant. I used the internet to find out the plant’s name: Foxglove. Digitalis. I know! I know! a common plant where I live! I thought I knew foxglove, but I only knew it in full bloom. I’d never looked at it carefully enough to identify it in its adolescence.

And so I’m repeating Sarah’s prompt as an invitation, and the prompt itself is a prompt of repetition: to engage with the same thing daily, to watch how the relationship evolves.

Something that I notice within the practice is the tension between boredom and innovation. If I take a photo of my foxglove every day, I’m motivated to approach it differently each time or else I’ll bore myself. If I draw the foxglove ten times (quickly!), I change from sharpie to pencil to ballpoint; I change from bottom to top to top to bottom. I draw carefully, then recklessly.

I start to suspect that repetition opens a portal to play.

What plant will you marry this week?