“Things take the time they take. Don’t worry.
How many roads did St. Augustine follow before he became St. Augustine?”
— Mary Oliver
“Come here,” my dad Rob says tonight in our backyard. “I want to teach you something.”
It’s a Monday night in our hometown of Suffolk, Virginia, and the sticky humidity so characteristic of the South has finally broken, opening up to a twilight coolness – the sun still high enough to give light but no longer warm.
My dad is standing by the humble garden we’ve got going on this summer – a few tomato plants in bright blue cages, green bell peppers, sunflowers who’ve yet to unfurl their gold-fringed faces. I’m hesitant to approach him, thinking he’s about to correct the way I’d poured buckets of Miracle-Gro over the plants a little while earlier. It seems he’s got something else in mind.
“You never know, you might end up growing tomatoes one day,” he says, and at this point, with my departure for India only a few weeks away now in August, all I can think is, yep, you never know.
“You see these things here?” he asks me, pointing to a particular branch on a tomato plant. “You want to get rid of these, okay?” With hardly a thought, he snaps the vivid green stem off and tosses it to the ground.
At first, I don’t see why – for all I know, it’s just like every other branch on the plant. But he tells me it’s not about the branch itself, but where it’s growing.
My dad keeps pinching at the plant, snapping the deviants away. They’re all over the bush – some are tiny, barely big enough to call a bud, while some are long and have stems almost too thick to pull. But what they all have in common is that they’re growing in a fork between two branches.
“These are called suckers. If you let ‘em grow, you’ll only get small tomaters,” he says and I smile at the way he pronounces it. “But we want big tomaters, so we gotta get rid of them.”
These side shoots, he explained, end up stealing energy and nutrients from the rest of the plant. It may seem a little counter-intuitive, given that the suckers will also bear fruit, but the tomatoes will be smaller and the entire plant out of control.
It was right then that I yelled to my dad, “Wait!”, sprinted upstairs, grabbed my camera, ran back down and found him leaning impatiently on the handle of the broom.
“What was all that about?” he asks.
“Hang on, I’ll tell you in a minute,” I say, leaning in close to get a good angle on the newly pruned forks, on the delicate yellow tomato flowers, and on the tiny green babies that have already appeared.
And that’s when I give him the explanation he’d been waiting for.
This summer – beyond being a time to catch up with family – has been a time to get things going. Writing things. Freelance things. In a way, it’s been a time of standing at my own fork in the road, asking myself what direction I really want to pursue.
A lot of people ask me if I make a living from travel writing, and I’m not ashamed to give them an honest answer. Because I don’t – just yet. And when your bank account hovers this close to empty so often – when the assignments aren’t regular and the paychecks far from steady – it’s tempting to take whatever comes your way. Just last week, I saw a call-out from a travel blogger, advertising a part-time gig that would’ve paid a couple hundred dollars a month for twenty hours of work. I came close to applying, thinking it was better money than no money, even if it wasn’t for doing something I love. It was, as my dad might’ve said, for small tomaters.
But then something in me held back – maybe the little something that actually believes this whole big writing thing is gonna lead somewhere one day. That I can do a lot of writing in twenty hours. And that thing said, don’t fill up your time with things you aren’t passionate about. Hold out for the things you are. Hold out for the big tomaters.
When I finally ask my dad who taught him about suckers, he pauses for a moment.
“Well, I guess Pop Crawford must’ve taught me,” he says, talking about my grandfather, further proving the point that father knows best.
And can you imagine a better metaphor for sticking to your dreams?
Tend the vine. Prune the suckers. Grow some big tomatoes.
Hey Candace,
I’m new to your blog and really enjoyed this post.
I think it’s quite a common occurrence for people starting out on their own path to get swayed in another direction when things aren’t at their best. What makes it even easier is how much we now see on a daily basis, offers, opportunities, different ideas, all vying to steal our attention, our time and tempt us in a different direction, ultimately trying to stop the laser-like focus needed to “make it” doing anything worthwhile.
I know you see the bank account being close to empty as a bad thing but it’s also a great motivator to get things done and move another step closer to your goal. Once it’s in a healthier state you may find it much more tempting to take the afternoon off or cut a few hours at each end of the day, these are my suckers which need pruning.
Best of luck with your travel writing, stay focussed,
Ian
Hey Ian – Thanks for stopping by The Great Affair, I appreciate you taking the time to visit! I think you bring up a really good point about the many offers that come our way daily now…with things like Twitter, it often feels like there’s a steady stream of opportunities to be involved in and it’s easy to get caught up in it. While it’s a challenge to stay focused on the things we most want to do, it also means they’re worth fighting for. Thanks again for saying hello and I look forward to seeing you here again!
CANDACE! Beautiful post of great words and analogies. Hmm the suckers in my life would be fear? and probably security. Much the same as yours.
Proud of you for sticking it out and doing what you love! I’ve said it before and I’ll never stop: you’re an inspiration!
Love love love.
M xx
Micaela! Thanks so much for your comment, my love 🙂 Your encouragement means a lot and I’m so glad you enjoyed this post. Yes – security is definitely one of my biggest suckers. I think some of the things that distract me the most actually do so just because of the financial (or life) security they’ll provide. But perhaps one of the first steps in getting rid of our suckers is just being aware of what they are (fear, security, etc), so we can work on moving past them? Love to you too and I can’t wait to hear about your upcoming adventures! xx
Love this post girl. Stay true to yourself. Prune the suckers – wise words, my friend and I’m happy you shared them. As I get ready to fly back to Canada next Wednesday, I am bracing myself for all of the questions I will face and how I will need to hold on to my passions and plans and not let the fears of other people cause my own fears to escalate. Follow your passion. Chase your dreams. Life is either a daring adventure or nothing at all, right?
Hey Terri! It’s great to hear from you. I can’t believe you’re nearing the end of your adventure – I know I only met you halfway through, but I’ve really enjoyed all of your posts since then and getting to see South America through your eyes. I’ll be thinking of you as you return to Canada next week and look forward to hearing what’s up next for you. x
PS – That Helen Keller quote is one of my favorites 🙂 Thanks for reminding me of it!
Yep, totally agree. Great great stuff and beautifully written. Keep focused. Don’t waste your energy and time. Nurture your dreams.
But don’t forget your pension.
It’s struggling with that space between the forks that makes life worth writing about.
😉 miz
Couldn’t agree with you more – even about making sure I don’t neglect my pension 😉 Thank you for the encouragement though – I miss our dinners and Spring Grove catch-ups, so I’m grateful for virtual pep talks like these. Can’t wait to read the writing this summer holds for you too! x
Such a mindful post, Candace. I admire you for holding on to your dreams and passions. I like to think that the best job is the one that doesn’t feel like a job for you – that’s the one you’ll feel passionate about and the one you’ll be best at. A good paycheck might be tempting, but at the end, money can’t really pay for your happiness.
Thanks so much for your comment, Katherina. I think you’re spot on about what defines the best job for us – loving what you do makes it that much easier to get to work everyday and say no to distractions. Hope you had a great time in Stockholm, by the way!
🙂 that was ‘bang on’ and timely… wow.. enjoyed the post
Ah, I’m so glad to hear that. It was pretty timely for me, too, so I’m happy it resonated with you as well 🙂 Thanks!
I love your writing Candace, you have such a gift, and you use analogies beautifully. “… sunflowers who’ve yet to unfurl their gold-fringed faces.” I love this! I hope our paths will cross in India as well – let me know what your plans are 🙂
Thank you, Hannah! That means a lot coming from you – I feel the same about your own writing 🙂 And yes, I believe our paths will definitely cross – I’m actually working with the Adventurists now on the Rickshaw Run (doing social media, photography, etc), so if all goes well, I’ll be seeing you in January for sure! When do you get to India? And how long will you be there? x
Hi Candace,
You did it! You are moving to India!!! Which city? I have been thinking about the same move for a while now too (we briefly had a conversation via twitter about moving to India after I discovered your blog).
I wanted to thank you for your inspiring words. Your post has been very timely as i’ve recently been lacking direction and inspiration. Your analogy of “the suckers” being a fork in the road has reminded me that I too need to take a step back and evaluate which path I want to pursue.
Keep up the great work. You are a wonderful writer!
Hey Jenny! It’s been wonderful to re-connect with you this week, I definitely remember chatting with you earlier on Twitter. Thanks for your kind words of support and encouragement – I’m headed back to India in August and will be moving around quite a bit at first. Towards November/December, I hope to start basing myself in Delhi – it’s central so I can keep popping around to different parts of India, has lots of cool expat, writing and travel groups, and I just found it interesting my last time there 🙂 You never know, though, so I’ll keep you posted!
But what was really cool to hear is that the “suckers” analogy also resonated with you – I was hoping it wasn’t too random or out there, so I’m glad to hear you related to it as well! You’re back in Canada at the moment, but do you have travel plans coming up? What sort of paths are you thinking of pursuing right now?
Thanks again for saying hello, and I’m looking forward to staying in touch!
THIS is so real, for me rt now. THANKS. I’ m in a season of my life where I am so appreciative, yet I know there’s so much more. I am sorta tired of
The little tomaters. And these are the things that steal my energy. As a therapist, its so essy to fall in line with the next counseling job, because ” I can be good at it, and know it well.” However, its time to break, and know what true energy feels like. And be simply happy, for a while. And to not listen to anyone’ s story but my own. Thanks for the encouragement, I am seeking bigger, better fruit. ( I love analogies!)
It’s great to meet a fellow analogy lover, Jennifer 🙂 I’m so glad this post resonated with you, and I really hope it inspires you to trim away the things that rob your energy. For me, the difficult part of this process is that there’s nothing inherently wrong with the “little tomatoes” – as you said, sometimes they’re still things we care about or are good at, but when they’re not the best thing for us to be focused on, that’s when they’ve got to go. Thanks again for reading, and I hope to see you here again!
Great advice! Some things just hang on and make things less productive. I smiled reading this…your dad is a wise man.