I want to rip it out. I want it gone. My fingers curl into the earth, past a few panicked beetles. Potato bugs. The labyrinth of roots, vines, and shoots.

They find clumpy, wet soil. Soil stuck as much to itself as to the root. It yields little purchase and, interwoven with strawberries, a difficult choice: I can have either sweet fruit and a never-ending battle with creeping invasives, or I can rip it all out.

Behind me, a chalky patch kicks up dust at the slightest breeze. An aggressive bout of weeding a few weeks before left the soil barren. No weeds. No life. I planted some peppers there, but they struggled to take root and have flowered ever so tentatively. Meanwhile, the strawberries burst amid the weeds.

I have a tendency to want to tear out anything and everying invasive. To start from a clean slate. I want a spotless desk, a distraction-free writing environment, and a weedless garden. But if you tear out every living thing, the garden becomes a desert.

Sometimes the things you think choke you are the ones that make you strong. They create the conditions for life. And they’re hard as hell to uproot without taking everything beautiful along with them.