I collect rocks—really ugly rocks. It began as a painful childhood chore, for my parents believed “idle hands” truly were “the devil’s workshop.” Each morning before beginning his “paying job,” our Dad would gather my siblings and me, and assign us our own job for the day. It could have been anything. We loved washing our loyal sidekick, Sir Pup, in the backyard’s metal washtub, and raced to clear broken limbs and decaying leaves from our farm’s meandering creek. We never finished, but frequently would devote our time, but little attention, to painting the side of the barn. Occasionally we would pull-up pokeberry vines, which would inevitably lead to one of us, usually our sister, getting smeared from head to toe with the berry’s purple, permanently purple, juice. After the requisite scolding from our Mom, we would all end up back in the washtub, not a bad ending to an adventurous day. (Our little sister remained purple for a few days, but grudgingly forgave us.) And then, when it appeared we had painted, pulled, chopped, and scrubbed the entire farm, we would hear that dreaded, dastardly call. “You three need to pick up rocks today.” And so, the saga of the really ugly rocks began.
I’ve often wondered if anyone has ever counted the number of rocks on a hundred acre farm. I think there must be gazillions. They were everywhere, hiding under sheds, peeking from mossy banks, resting peacefully in soybean fields. Occasionally they appeared ominous and menacing, but mostly they were just hanging-out, groovy sorts of guys, just minding their own business, In the eye of a 12 year old, this “job” was just plain silly. These rocks weren’t hurting anything. This was their home! Granted, their “home” left much to be desired, as the frequently unwelcoming and obtuse seasons did leave them exposed and all scattered about. And they were ugly! But questioning Dad invariably led to something like, “they’ll tear-up the plow blade,” or “choke one of the cows.” At the time, the rebuttal seemed easy enough to me. Don’t plow. Simple. Just don’t plow. And as far as I was concerned, there was no hope for a cow who decided to eat a rock. My supplications always fell on deaf ears, and off we’d go, a barefoot trio of grumbling children clutching our paper sack of peanut butter saltines in one hand, and a Mason jar of cherry Kool-Aid in the other.
Rocks could be sneaky little things. Chameleon-like. they would often appear to be the size of an apple from our farm’s orchard, and then, after our united efforts of huffing and prodding (but mostly fussing), they would launch themselves from the red clay soil, more closely resembling a burst watermelon than the fruit from a tree. Some were sharp and jagged, some crumbly, still others were brown, and flat, and really dirty. Some even smelled. All in all, they were decidedly uninteresting. Most would just sit, appearing to observe the futility of our efforts. Others would appear to contemplate their next move, while the bulk of the would be fiends engaged in what appeared to be a phantom flight from the rock pile. Each day we’d stack at least a couple of inches, only to return to find our nemeses once again scampering back to their respective abodes. Looking back, it was the “picking up rocks” assignment that drove me to five college degrees—but that’s a story for another day.
It was an afternoon like every other summer afternoon in Virginia—oppressive and sweltering, with a sun that appeared to focus all its rays onto our personal field of rocks. My brother had sneaked behind the barn and eaten everyone’s peanut butter crackers, and my sister had dropped the Kool Aid jar, which of course, had broken into smithereens. All was lost. The end was near. I was going to die, an unnoticed, unfulfilled child of the rocks, and would be taking my equally innocent siblings with me. And then I found it, the rock that changed my life.
It was just a rock. A really ugly rock. Gray and brown, cranky and ill-tempered, misshapen, defeated, and warty, very much like every other rock I’d rescued from the cows and plow during my tenure as protector of the farm. That is, until I turned it over.
At first, I just stared, then slowly dropped to my knees in amazement, blinking rapidly to clear the incredulous vision from my eyes. This rock, unlike any ordinary rock I’d ever seen, was filled with miniature caverns, each tiny room radiating with crystals of green and purple and gold. It shimmered, and glistened, and glowed. Overcome with amazement at my monumental find, I looked around, and noticed, squinted, observed, that there were no ordinary rocks, that all along I had been surrounded by really ugly rocks that just needed a little attention—a bath, perhaps a little cleaning, some polishing, simply a closer view. I hadn’t seen the mica radiating in the rays of that broiling summer sun. Nor had I witnessed the colorful bands of malachite, kyanite, and amethyst meandering throughout virtually every stone on the farm. Awed by my new-found understanding, I turned my attention to the shapes, and realized their beauty was in their uniqueness, that sharp and craggy, crumbly and flat, was not ugly, but a reflection of these rocks’ seemingly ornery determination to chart their own course. In spite of the mid-summer sun, pelting rains, and brutally cold winter days, they remained beautiful—a little crusty perhaps, but beautiful nonetheless.
Today, I have those “ugly” rocks everywhere—on windowsills, in baskets, on my office desk. They transport me back to the idyllic summer days of our childhood, and remind me of how very fortunate we, as children, were to have been protected from the mid-summer sun, pelting rains, and brutally cold winters -of life. Today, my work causes me to be all too familiar with the unwelcoming nature of their home, which more often than not left them exposed, resistant, reluctant, even menacing at times. Today those rocks don’t seem at all ornery, but courageous, determined. While some engaged in a phantom flight from the protectiveness of the rock pile, others escaped our cows’ stomachs, and allowed their crystal caverns of green and gold and purple and bands of mica, malachite, kyanite, and amethyst to shimmer and glow. They just needed a little cleaning, some polishing, perhaps a closer view. And a little child to turn them over.
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