UDSKRIFT 🔗
WEBVTT
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Hi.
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Oh wait, hello.
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Hi, this is Jill Badonsky, and this is A Muse's Daydream.
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And I'm going to hand you over to Jilly Ann Badonsky.
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And we're we're both the same person, full disclosure.
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It's just that she talks with a a southern accent because uh she lived a while in Florida.
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She's going to talk about kudzu.
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Kudzu by Jilly Ann.
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Down here we don't so much as have kudzu as it has us.
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It's this vine, it looks like ivy, and once it gets started, it don't stop.
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I first noticed it crawling over the fence behind Aunt Darlene's house, moving with the slow confidence of something that has never been told no.
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No.
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It's evasive, people say, the way they might say has a strong personality.
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Right before that person ruins Thanksgiving.
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But honestly, what exactly is kudzu supposed to do?
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It's an enthusiastic plant here on assignment, doing the one thing it was built to do.
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Grow.
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So when it grows with its flair for drama, we act shocked.
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Oh no, we say as the kudzu eats the shed the birth bath and heads for the above ground pool.
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I personally respect its commitment.
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I wish I had more of that.
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It seems to me kudzu is doing what every self-help book has been yelling at us to do for years.
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Stop apologizing for your needs.
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Even if your needs include swallowing a 1997 Toyota Croyola and half a Baptist church.
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Well, some boundaries would be nice, but it's a plant on a mission.
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I once tried to grow basil.
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I whispered affirmations to it.
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I sang it John Denver songs.
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I bought it a nicer pot, thinking maybe it just needed better housing, like a millennial.
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And that basil died with the quiet dignity of something that clearly would have preferred to live in Florence.
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And that's Florence, Italy, not Florence, North Carolina.
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Kudzu, meanwhile, does not ask, is this too much?
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It asks, what else you got?
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Impressive confidence, maybe a little on the entitled side, but still unwavering.
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It's not, I'm just seeing how it goes.
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It's fully wholeheartedly doing the job it came here to do.
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And there's a lesson there.
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I'm not sure what it is.
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Maybe it's that it doesn't need a five-year plan or a vision board.
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It just jumps right in.
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It is the vision board.
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Most of us aren't in danger of becoming kudzu, we're barely parsley.
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We apologize to our own houseplants.
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We hesitate when we should be finding a new place to grow enthusiastically, inappropriately, with confidence that suggests we never read a single comment section or listen to people who don't get us.
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Now I'm not saying we should all go out and consume a tool shed or emotionally engulf a neighbor or friends.
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We don't want to sabotage, and there are rules and laws.
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But I am saying there's something about giving yourself a bit more room to be who you already are.
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Where can you branch out a little bit?
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Try branching out.
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We don't want a full takeover, not a botanical coup, just a little more space.
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Ask what else you got, life.
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Because maybe the point isn't to become invasive, maybe it's to become more alive in the direction you're already leaning or dreaming.
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Or scheming, sorry.
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Maybe it's sermon to the rest of us is do what you came here to do, even if it's just a little bit more, and try not to eat the whole neighborhood.
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This has been A Muses Daydream with Jilly Ann Badonsky.
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Grow safe out there, but uh let's take a small step.