Coexisting With Weeds
By Kim Jeong-kyoo
The air here is bracing, the mountains fabulous and the meandering streams crystal clear and clean. Witnessed more often than not in the nearby mountains are wild roe deers and pigs. Along the main stream they built a long walk, where walkers can enjoy a cool summer breeze.
It's quite strange, though, that only somewhat skinny characters like me ramble briskly or run there, working out, which makes me wonder where all the chubby guys are.
I woke up this morning to cheery sound of birds chirping, which, in turn, lured me outside. The birds were nowhere to be seen though. What caught my eye instead were egg and tomato plants in bloom in the front garden, along with pepper plants, with so many small green peppers dangling from their tiny stems.
Also noticed that balsam sprouts had grown remarkably taller lately. I sowed their seeds about a month ago. I'm anxious to see them blooming into full color. That would be in the latter part of July or in the early part of August.
Growing the fastest, out of all, is the pumpkin plants at the corner of the garden. They flourish just like weeds.
All these plants I'm growing in the garden with care and love will start to provide fresh organic vegetables before long through to fall, when a persimmon tree and a jujube grow old enough to bestow their juicy, fleshy fruits on their home owner.
Indeed, I like to care for the garden. It is full of flowers and provides me with fresh vegetables and fruits bereft of harmful chemicals such as antiseptics and preservatives.
The garden's only drawback, however, is that it is easily overgrown with nasty weeds, which also overrun the entire cottage on a persistent basis no matter how frequently I pull them out.
Their vitality is beyond description. It's amazing. There is no point in doing away with them thoroughly every time I hoe the garden. They never fail to run riot again before long. After rain, in particular, the entire yard immediately becomes thick with them.
Observing them surviving or rather thriving on in such a resolute way makes me wonder how that can be possible. They weather all the harshness of their difficult living conditions.
In fact, their existence has been continuously threatened by me, their merciless enemy who wanted to keep the cottage from getting choked with the massively, nasty grasses. However, they've never been losers, rising up over and over again. How indomitable they are!
A couple of days ago when I was weeding the garden, all of a sudden it hit me hard that nothing would be impossible in our life if we live on keeping the tenacious spirit of the weeds in mind. They are obstinate and never give up.
Moved by their tenacity, I stopped hoeing, then murmured, I'd better live together with them. It's virtually impossible to get rid of them; incidentally and ironically enough, the agony of life resembles the reappearance of weeds somehow or other. Both of them never stop returning again over and over.
Since then I've thought of the weeds as my friends; at the moment, they and I are coexisting as intimate friends and perhaps our good relationship will continue eternally. Now I feel happier with them than ever before as I can converse with them no matter when I feel sad or lonely. They are always there in the garden just in front of the sleeping room, invariably keeping me company.
Currently, I love them all the more, to the extent of respecting them. Whenever I'm in difficulty, they come up to me with a serene smile and whisper in my ear, "You've got to overcome it just as we do. Life is full of vicissitudes and every individual has to bear on the shoulder one's own cross, loaded with cares and anguishes. C'est la vie!" "Yes, you're right; that's a life, my dear weeds! Life is one hell of a lot of desolation rather than a pleasure; life amounts to trudging, bearing the misery of living, after all."
The writer, a columnist of The Korea Times, lives on the outskirts of a southern province.