a seed

A seed is the beginning of something new, something as yet unborn. Sometimes it's tangible, you can feel its potential, its becoming. Other times seeds are just there, below the surface, growing roots invisible to the naked eye, working silently.

At the beginning of our time here, communication was hard; there were no channels, there was no flow. The two of us spoke in sign language, we used lone words, simple sentences at best. We had tea together, and our mutual newness held us afloat. We were both a little scared, unsure of what we were doing there--was it the right decision to come to India? We were both so foreign, from this new country, from each other.

But the day we had tea, when we looked at photographs (her, pointing, "Mom", "Friend." Me, "Oh, nice! Pretty."), a seed was planted. A basis for friendship. For a long time the seed stayed hidden beneath a cover of smiles, behind a barrier of languages we didn't have in common. But over time the seed grew roots. Shared experience, a learning of words, idioms, pronunciation, cooking, sadness, laughter, all of it helped this sapling take hold on earth.

Now it's as if it's always been there. How could it not be? But once the seed was just a seed--it could have dried up, it could have been blown away, it could have just failed to grow. Instead: treedom.