How is Your Tenacity?

How is your tenacity? Do you hang on, or will you be shaken? I suggest you be shaken.

This morning I spent the better part of fifteen minutes pulling tiny burrs out of a picnic blanket. A group of us attended an outdoors performance of Puccini’s “Tosca” last night and when we arrived at the large grassy hill and claimed our spot I quickly realized that I’d carried with me several hundred hitchhikers from the Art Car Parade a couple weeks ago. After a quick glance at the little offenders, it became evident that they were dug in and wouldn’t budge with a shake of the blanket. The sweet grade-schooler in our party said they were only “bumpy” and didn’t really cause a bother. She was correct.

We enjoyed a beautiful late spring night in the park and I tossed the blanket in the laundry room when I arrived home, not thinking much about it until this morning when I realized I’d have to remove as many of the burrs by hand as possible before I washed it or it would end up a matted mess when it came out of the machine.


Removing them wasn’t unpleasant. They weren’t the big, pointy kind that pricks your fingers. It was just something that had to be done unless I wanted to throw the blanket out. I didn’t. Too many memories or fun times are wrapped up in that blanket. I keep it in my car for events just like last night. Houston is full of opportunities to share a meal outside with friends, or gaze at the stars while an orchestra plays, or just sit and talk. We live in a wonderful city for such things.

While I was picking those little burrs off the blanket I thought back to my own days in grade school when I learned how organisms and plants develop survival methods. Whatever seed was inside those heavily armored and pointy burrs had worked very hard to survive. Maybe I’d helped it along the way, carrying it from Allen Parkway and dropping one of its progeny along my route. Maybe it’s a noxious weed. Probably. One thing is for certain. It holds on.

Which brings me to Tosca, and me, and maybe you.
The character Floria Tosca (for those of you who aren’t familiar) carried herself as a strong woman. She was a prominent singer, even famous in her community. She fought off the advances of the Chief of Police and through the entire opera argued with her true love over her own jealousy which was oddly misplaced because the object of her affection was not cheating on Tosca. He was working on a religious painting, and if Tosca was anything, she was a church-going gal. She was one tenacious (read: “clingy”) woman. She held onto an idea and clutched it for all it was worth. She just kept going…and going. I won’t ruin the story for you, but I will tell you that if you want a classic opera experience, go see this one by Puccini.

Tosca, the singer, would annoy the hell out of me if she was my friend. I’d probably tell her to snap out of it. That kind of tenacity doesn’t get you very far. It doesn’t allow for optimal growth. If you’re lucky enough to fall into some random soil, great! Grow for all you’re worth but I think you may be in for being stuck, for being carried along on someone else’s blanket.

Today:
Letting go. Softening. Lying ON the blanket instead of being stuck to it – or worse yet, under it. That, my friend, is suffocation.


©Michelle Scofield, May 22, 2010 All Rights Reserved