Dear Sunday: rooting
the last tomato, entropy, and nativity
The other morning, I thought of rooting—not as a passive act but as an intentional one. Rooting is messy. It’s the untended garden, the life lived without a map. Roots can’t see where they are going, and it’s intuitive. It’s critical for any growth! In the rush to grow, change, and move forward, we often forget the blind entropy required to turn into and move through a mess, which is the very action that sustains true growth.
In France, tomatoes are sometimes called pommes d’amour (the apple of love) because of their aphrodisiac properties. Tomatoes are one of nature’s perfect gifts. As autumn wanes and the messy garden overtakes the paths, the tomatoes that once swelled red in summer’s heat are replaced with absence and cold. Entropy overtakes all at some point in the cycle. The cycle is the circle and is wholeness. The life and death or fruit and seed are parts of the whole. I recently thought about parts, the whole, and the origin. I traced my thoughts about wholeness and origin to the word nativity.
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The word nativity comes from the Latin nativus, meaning “innate” or “produced by birth.” To root ourselves is to return to this place of origin, the soil from which we first grew. It’s a practice of returning to the source—whether that’s a physical place, a state of mind, or the values guiding us. But this return isn’t tidy. It’s not about perfect symmetry or neat rows. The path back to ourselves often winds through overgrown trails and forgotten gardens.
It asks us: Where do we root ourselves? How do we stay rooted amidst life’s inevitable messiness?
Nativity is not just where we begin—it’s what we return to.
The last tomato clinging to its vine reminds me of this tension. Its stillness is not resistance but resilience. The tomato remains connected to its source even as the garden fades and the paths grow wild. It doesn’t deny entropy, nor does it rush to meet it. It simply is. Holding on as long as it can.
Stillness feels radical in a world obsessed with movement. We are told to chase, produce, and do. However, Taoist philosophy offers another way: wu wei, or non-action. This is not passivity but alignment with the natural flow of things. To root ourselves is to align with life’s quiet rhythms. To be still is not to avoid change but to prepare for it gracefully.
When we root ourselves, we integrate the pull of chaos. We find our nativity in small stillness acts: peeling an orange, walking barefoot on the earth, sitting quietly at the edge of an untended garden, folding air-dried laundry. The messy path does not need clearing. It needs walking.
As I wrap up graduate school and move forward in my career as a poet in this big, beautiful literary world while full-time mothering my three beautiful children, I’ve let myself grow into and love the messier parts of myself and how that manifests in my outer world. The second half of this year has been an important experiment for me in rooting and entropy. I’ve also become obsessed with thermodynamic favorability, the free-energy process in which something will occur spontaneously because it’s natural or favorable.
What if we allowed ourselves the same grace? To be still, even as the world moves on. To root ourselves in our messy, unkempt lives and find beauty there. What if we let ourselves spontaneously be where and what we are favored to be? (As in, surrender to our purpose!)
On Rooting and Movement
Messy Beginnings: Write about a moment when you embraced uncertainty or took an intuitive step forward. How did this act of “rooting” lead to unexpected growth?
Blind Entropy: Explore when the “mess” of life—chaos, detours, or failures—was essential to your transformation. What lessons grew out of the disorder?
The Garden of Origin: Think of your metaphorical “soil.” What nurtured you at your earliest stages? How can you reconnect to that innate source?
On Connection to Source
Root Bound: Reflect on something or someone you’ve held onto tightly, much like a tomato clinging to its vine. What kept you rooted, and what did you learn from the tension?
Tracing Nativity: Create a list of places, objects, or moments that make you feel at home. Write a piece weaving these elements together to map your grounding forces.
On Everyday Grace
Rooting Through Action: Focus on an everyday act—watering a plant, folding laundry, or cutting vegetables. What does this action teach you about presence and connection?
The Resilient Tomato: Personify the last tomato in a forgotten garden. What story does it tell about stillness, change, or quiet resilience?
On Entropy and Wildness
Tangled Roots: Write about a relationship, project, or personal journey that became “overgrown.” What beauty or clarity emerged when you stopped trying to control it?
The Untamed World: Walk through a natural or urban space. Pay attention to places where wildness thrives. Use these observations as metaphors for areas where chaos has led to unexpected order or beauty.
On Thermodynamics and Grace
Spontaneous Growth: In thermodynamic terms, free energy is the driver of natural processes. What drives your own processes of growth or change?
Messy Yet Favorable: Explore the balance between disorder and creation in your personal or creative life. How does entropy push you toward authenticity?
Love,
Lindsey
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