climbin'

climber, originally uploaded by pilgrimgirl.

When John and I were carrying on our epistolary courtship across the Pacific (me in SoCal, he in Japan), back before the days of email (yes we are that old), we had often signed our notes with the phrase "Keep Climbin'." Perhaps that's odd, but it was our way of motivating each other to keep striving and working hard, to keep reaching our goals, etc. This was often interchanged with the Japanese phrase "Ganbatte!"

We don't say either of those phrases to each other much anymore, but when I snapped this picture of my climbing rose yesterday, it reminded me of those days when I used to tell John to "keep climbin'." This rose is a crazy climber--bursting up and out towards the sun. It's a homely rose, but it thrives and blossoms more brilliantly than any of the others in my garden plot. I dug this plant up from a flowerbed elsewhere on campus where some gardeners kept whacking it down to the dirt and it just continued to keep sending up new green branches.

There's a metaphor there somewhere, I suppose. :)

So here's to roses that seem to thrive wherever they are planted...and who keep climbin' towards that bright sun.