Ships Were Not Built for Safe Harbors

Years ago, when I moved into a house that already had a handful of rose bushes in the front yard, I knew next to nothing about caring for them.

Three by the porch were so overgrown that, if not for the colors of their blooms, might have been mistaken for one bush. They were wedged into a tiny flower bed against the garage wall and were beginning to creep over the front path.

By the time spring advanced to summer, the creeping had become invading, and the canes were as unruly as morning hair. It was time to do something.

I had a limited array of garden tools at that point. A couple of trowels perhaps. Definitely no pruning shears. I did have an electric hedge trimmer that had come in handy at my last home where the front yard was ringed entirely with dense, woody shrubs. I plugged it in and started to work.

Now that I understand roses a bit more, I’m haunted by that day. The scream of the trimmer, the flying bits of cane, the flittering pink, white and red petals. The memory is like a blood bath in a horror flick.

I suppose the trimmer would have been acceptable if the bushes had been hedge roses planted for the specific purpose of creating a sculpted border. These were climbers, and they deserved better.

If the roses felt battered or betrayed, they never showed it. They quickly bounced back from the massacre and flourished. Thankfully, by the next year I was more educated and had the right tools. I apologized to the bushes season after season with by-the-book deadheading (angled cut above the first five-leaf set) and carefully pruning them so they would grow upward instead of sideways.

When I moved again several years later and decided to grow a rose garden from scratch, I had enough practice that I wasn’t afraid of the challenge. I had learned that roses are hardy enough to rebound from almost any amateur blunder.

It seems it should be easy to transfer that insight to other aspects of life – to venture forth into unchartered territory unafraid of making mistakes because, well, mistakes are rarely fatal. Instead, most of the time they are the stuff of wisdom and growth.

This is as true as any truism in the annals of human history. Why else would generations of poets, songwriters, and authors repeatedly shower us with reminders about the value of sailing boldly out of safe harbors and taking roads less traveled?

And since they’ve said it so often and so well, why do we still need reminders?

I don’t have a one-size-fits-all answer to that. As for me, I look in the mirror and ponder my inner fears practically every day. It’s no surprise that the woman looking back rarely utters a helpful word. When she does, she smiles a knowing little smile and simply asks, “Do you remember the day you took a hedge trimmer to those roses?”

(With headline credit to John A. Shedd, Salt from My Attic, 1928, A ship in harbor is safe, but that is not what ships are built for.)