tumbleweeding
Tumbleweeds around me sing their lonely song.
Nights underneath the prairie moon,
I ride along and sing this tune.
See them tumbling down
Pledging their love to the ground ...1
Tumbling, tumbling, life pushes and so too halts us. We are at the whims of forces we’ve named; wind, entropy, gravity, to name a few. But there are many more forces unknown and unnamed. We think we have control. We think we know it all. We think we can get “in” life’s flow if we only behave this way or that way, but truth is—we are never not in the flow of this moving, transforming cosmos. We just continually fail to remember that the flow also ebbs.
Tumbling, tumbling, a tumbleweed is a diaspore. In botany, this means it’s particular way of dispersing seeds. Once the tumbleweed is mature, which is to say—nearing the end of its lifecycle, it detaches from its roots, relying on the wind to carry it across long stretches of land as it drops its many seeds. Some people say they’re an invasive species and a fire hazard. But I can’t help but to see the tumbleweed as a living poem.
I’ve been feeling like a tumbleweed since returning to NYC. I’ve been home for just under a month and have already stayed in two places. Come May, I’ll move to the third place, and then June I’ll move to the fourth—which will either be another sublet or will hopefully, possibly, be my own apartment (with affordable rent in a dream of a neighborhood). Thank goodness for friends! My, how they help me and hold me—remind me of the web we are spinning together. Part of me wants to pout about my current, tumbleweed state, and then I remember I chose this and what is the point of pouting over our own decisions? Then again, maybe I didn’t choose it so much as the tumbleweed chose me.
Whenever I think of a tumbleweed, I think of the quintessential cowboy-esque one, rolling across the dry, desert terrain at dusk, a low, solemn whistle soundtracking it. Perhaps it passes across a long, stretching highway with only two lanes, causing a car to swerve. I had hoped the tumbleweed was far more ancient than this image, but it’s believed they’re a relatively new addition on North American lands, here roughly 150 years, likely transported in flaxseed shipments. Tumbling, tumbling, I too have been feeling vulnerable, at the whims of the “winds”—each place I stay is offered by the good grace and trust of another human, in this moment I don’t wholly know where my final resting place will be—when my tumbling will cease.
I’ve been feeling rolled by life as of late, but then I think of the people in Gaza, or Sudan, or any place experiencing bombing and my tumbleweed experience suddenly feels false. I don’t know what else to say about this. I try to keep perspective, I try to feel my anger, I try to hold the hand of my fear. No one is “safe” when the world goes mad. And they’ve been singing about the mad world for millennia. Civilization, what a wild, wild thing. Lately it’s been helpful for me to hum to the trees. To cut some of my hair and throw it to the East River with a prayer and an SOS of sorts. To start gathering the necessities for removing string and debris from the feet of our city pigeons. I want to go mad in my own way, to stop pretending, to stop performing that I am sane by standards that are making us sick.
Tumbling, tumbling, I don’t know when the rolling will cease, how many seeds will I shed? which ones will take to root? Life is funny like this, we never know what will come of what carries on. We just tuck and roll, we throw a hail mary. I find the lighter I hold onto all of it the free-er I am. But I don’t mean this in some lame “love and light” way. I mean it’s unbearable to hold it all lightly. To truly let go of outcomes; over perfect control of our destinies; over the the things we think we can’t live without. Whoever said freedom felt good all of the time was lying through their crooked teeth. But they also told the truth through the tears in their eyes. Even the pain feels good sometimes, at least it means I’m feeling.
Rolling and rolling, this little tumbleweed doesn’t know the end but so desperately wants to. Even this I practice letting go of. Tumbling, tumbling we are at the whims of forces we’ve named and haven’t any idea of. What a world this is. We may be prisoners of it’s gravity, but we can still be free2.
Gene Autry song Tumbling Tumbleweeds
Lyric from the song shared above.
together we tumble 🤍
I loved reading this so much. I had never thought so much about the humble tumbleweed, but now am seeing the spirit of it everywhere. Sometimes we tumble, sometimes we stick. But when we tumble we drop seeds throughout the earth for more good tumbling to happen.