{"id":8813,"date":"2014-07-05T14:16:17","date_gmt":"2014-07-05T18:16:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/?p=8813"},"modified":"2014-07-05T14:16:17","modified_gmt":"2014-07-05T18:16:17","slug":"when-hot-sweaty-work-is-not-a-royal-pain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2014\/07\/when-hot-sweaty-work-is-not-a-royal-pain.html","title":{"rendered":"when hot sweaty work is NOT a royal pain"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"image\"<\/a>This was my morning. My elder son & I wrangled over each individual magnolia branch, pretty much. See, I’m a tree person, and Nathan is a landscape person. He wants a useful and beautiful landscape for his home. I want trees treated like people, allowed to grow (with help — AKA judicious pruning) to their best selves.<\/p>\n

Sometimes, these alternate realities are not easy to reconcile. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

Luckily, my wonderful DIL is a good mediator, as are my husband and younger son. And my grandson is a marvelous distraction.<\/p>\n

And even though it looks like chaos, w\/ all the branches strewn beneath, I know that the magnolia is the best compromise possible — more branches left lower (and fuller) than Nathan probably anticipated, but fewer than I would have done for my own tree.<\/p>\n

Parenting is like this. You’re always juggling freedom w\/ \u00a0knowledge. In this case, I have a LOT of tree knowledge, hard-won over decades of crappy yards, and reading up on the various ecologies where we’ve lived. The desert (henna and Natal plum \u00a0and hibiscus), the tropics (plumeria and bougainvillea), the prairie (dogwood and redbud and pecan).<\/p>\n

I’m a complete tree nerd, I confess. \ud83d\ude42\"image\"<\/a><\/p>\n

But my son isn’t, although he’s quite knowledgeable in his own right. And like most of our children, his objectives are different than mine. For me, aesthetics is a huge deal. For him, the man who began his college career as an engineer, functionality is more critical. He is his father’s son: he want head room for a mower. Me? I’d push the mower forward under the tree line. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

But as you can see, together with my daughter-in-law, husband, and younger son, the two trees turned out well. And in the long-term? They’ll flourish. Kind of like my sons: not what I thought they’d be (I never planned for them to live so far away!), but incredibly lovely.<\/p>\n

This seems an appropriate reflection, given that this is the last holiday we’ll all share for quite a while. My younger son is readying for an around-the-world trip, one he anticipates will take at least a year or more. Which means this Fourth of July holiday is all the more precious. And the hot, sweaty work of \u00a0picking up branches, and straining against lopper just sliiiiightly too small for the branch that needs cutting less a pain than a communal project.<\/p>\n

This isn’t work I like to do at home. But here, w\/ family members on the deck, taking turns holding & feeding the grandson, it’s heaven. Or at least a Virginia equivalent. Amazing what love can do to sweeten hard work.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This was my morning. My elder son & I wrangled over each individual magnolia branch, pretty much. See, I’m a tree person, and Nathan is a landscape person. He wants a useful and beautiful landscape for his home. I want trees treated like people, allowed to grow (with help — AKA judicious pruning) to their…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":398,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[576,37,397],"tags":[11,1181,1187,262,1308,1195,1248,1281],"class_list":["post-8813","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-everyday-living","category-family","category-love","tag-beginners-heart","tag-britton-gildersleeve","tag-buddhism","tag-buddhist-blogs","tag-everyday-living","tag-family","tag-living-in-the-moment","tag-love"],"yoast_head":"\nwhen hot sweaty work is NOT a royal pain - Beginner's Heart<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"This was my morning. My elder son & I wrangled over each individual magnolia branch, pretty much. See, I'm a tree person, and Nathan is a landscape\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2014\/07\/when-hot-sweaty-work-is-not-a-royal-pain.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"when hot sweaty work is NOT a royal pain - Beginner's Heart\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"This was my morning. My elder son & I wrangled over each individual magnolia branch, pretty much. See, I'm a tree person, and Nathan is a landscape\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2014\/07\/when-hot-sweaty-work-is-not-a-royal-pain.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Beginner's Heart\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2014-07-05T18:16:17+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/files\/2014\/07\/image2-204x300.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Britton Gildersleeve\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"when hot sweaty work is NOT a royal pain - Beginner's Heart","description":"This was my morning. My elder son & I wrangled over each individual magnolia branch, pretty much. See, I'm a tree person, and Nathan is a landscape","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2014\/07\/when-hot-sweaty-work-is-not-a-royal-pain.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"when hot sweaty work is NOT a royal pain - Beginner's Heart","og_description":"This was my morning. My elder son & I wrangled over each individual magnolia branch, pretty much. See, I'm a tree person, and Nathan is a landscape","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2014\/07\/when-hot-sweaty-work-is-not-a-royal-pain.html","og_site_name":"Beginner's Heart","article_published_time":"2014-07-05T18:16:17+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/files\/2014\/07\/image2-204x300.jpg"}],"author":"Britton Gildersleeve","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2014\/07\/when-hot-sweaty-work-is-not-a-royal-pain.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2014\/07\/when-hot-sweaty-work-is-not-a-royal-pain.html","name":"when hot sweaty work is NOT a royal pain - Beginner's Heart","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2014\/07\/when-hot-sweaty-work-is-not-a-royal-pain.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2014\/07\/when-hot-sweaty-work-is-not-a-royal-pain.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/files\/2014\/07\/image2-204x300.jpg","datePublished":"2014-07-05T18:16:17+00:00","dateModified":"2014-07-05T18:16:17+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/#\/schema\/person\/b4348bfbe2223c0ec325db830aa95f52"},"description":"This was my morning. My elder son & I wrangled over each individual magnolia branch, pretty much. See, I'm a tree person, and Nathan is a landscape","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2014\/07\/when-hot-sweaty-work-is-not-a-royal-pain.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2014\/07\/when-hot-sweaty-work-is-not-a-royal-pain.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2014\/07\/when-hot-sweaty-work-is-not-a-royal-pain.html#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/files\/2014\/07\/image2-204x300.jpg","contentUrl":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/files\/2014\/07\/image2-204x300.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2014\/07\/when-hot-sweaty-work-is-not-a-royal-pain.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"when hot sweaty work is NOT a royal pain"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/","name":"Beginner's Heart","description":"Beliefnet Voices - Britton Gildersleeve","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/#\/schema\/person\/b4348bfbe2223c0ec325db830aa95f52","name":"Britton Gildersleeve","description":"Britton Gildersleeve is a 'third culture kid.' Years spent living on the margins - in places with exotic names and food shortages - have left her with a visceral response to folks \u2018without,\u2019 as well as a desire to live her Buddhism in an engaged fashion. She\u2019s a writer and a teacher, the former director of a federal non-profit for teachers who write. She believes that if we talk to each other, we can learn to love each other (but she's still learning how). And she believes in tea. She is (still) working on her beginner's heart ~","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/author\/brittongildersleeve"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8813","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/398"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8813"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8813\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8819,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8813\/revisions\/8819"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8813"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8813"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8813"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}