the vine

just got in from hacking the vine back from around the nursery and off various trees around the property.  for some reason, i identify very favorably with this activity.  small little serrated sickle blade that you hold in your hands.  and then kind of squat down and cut and pull.  you can get it going in pretty big sheets or rolls sometimes because it grows like a net, just a bunch of little vines all on top of one another.  and you find what must be the mother strands, bigger and more woody than the others.  the vine can do amazing things when left to its own devices.  it continues to grow back on top of itself when it dies, so when it gets really thick, you'll have inches of dead and to various stages decaying plant material underneath the green surface.  it can also hang down in thick curtains from the trees.  it must climb the tree then drop back down and then climb back up on top of itself.  i've seen a swath of it maybe eight feet by thirty feet hanging down so thick you cant see through it.  this struck me as particularly amazing.  

the vine i'm referring to is, of course, our least favorite plant. 

its strange, i had to come all the way to maui to find an appropriate occasion to use the phrase "least favorite".  i think too often we use it synonymously with "the worst".  its good to have enough favorites that you have a meaningful least among them.  "most favorite" seems to be a phrase that we leave for children to use, coaxing it out of our system and trading it for "the best" as we grow older.  somehow our "least favorites" stick around though.  for instance, i bet we all have a least favorite flavor of ice cream.  mine's pistachio, just off the top of my head right now.  

this is not a significant discovery in any way, shape or form.  it may not even be true.  but i am going to start saying "most favorite" more often just to see what happens.