Praise for the Pause
It’s too windy this morning to ignite the burn piles we’ve created in strategic places on the land (near the garden (ash is good to mix in with the other compostables)), down by where the old dairy barn used to stand, and at the bottom of the slope to the old old goat barn) and the township’s volunteer fire department just posted the burn ban hours for spring, so I’d better find something else to do.
Today’s walk was more meandering with lopers in hand, just in case I needed to cut back the aggressive blackberry vines with their thorny teeth chewing their way up the tender trunks of our baby sycamore saplings. My aching hands tell me I made progress, but with 41 acres of unsupervised growing space and the season of new life still in its overture phase, I suspect that ache is more anticipatory. I let myself be distracted by the chatter of mockingbirds (oh, they came back!), standing beneath their treetop rapid-fire impersonations for several rich and pleasing minutes.
I don’t feel like doing much of anything today. Is that ok?
In this beehive busy life of ours, it’s rare that Patrick and I wake up unmotivated or empty of project ideas. We’ve been cranking our way through a perpetual to-do list for going on twenty-two years now, and we suspect a hidden hand is adding to it in invisible ink while we slumber. But today opened with bright sun coming in and out of fast-moving fluffy white clouds with grey bottoms and it reminded me so much of summers spent at the family cottage on Marble Lake in Quincy, Michigan, I settled into those memories as my feet slowed to a more leisurely rhythm. Let the wind move and whip its way around me, acting all purposeful like it’s got somewhere to be. I’m gonna take it easy for a change, cut blackberry vines or not; we’ll just see how the spirit moves me. If the ground wasn’t soaked from yesterday’s rain, I’d have kipped down right there on the field path and napped my way through the brunch hour. It won’t be long before it’s dry enough to do that. Of course, when the time comes, the mood will overtake me while I’m at work, and they kinda discourage employees in repose on the lawn that frames the parking lot. I tried it once, had a blanket and everything spread out on the grass in front of my truck (on my lunch break, I promise you), but it ended abruptly when John, our friendly maintenance staffer was using the leaf blower to clean the asphalt of debris and unwittingly shot a spray of dried crabapples and pea gravel across and under the truck just as I was drifting off. I’ve never heard a human being apologize so profusely (once my heart was out of afib, I assured him the welts would heal).
The morning walk is quite finished (so is breakfast and a couple of mid-morning snacks) and I’m still meandering, though I haven’t gotten up off the couch in over an hour. In my mind, I’m sifting through a few possibilities for after-lunch activity but so far, no one is voting heavily in any particular direction. When was I last aimless like this, and not feeling guilty about it? If I can’t recall, it’s been too long. There are half-started art quilts piled on an antique platform rocker in the studio, whispering how much fun I’ll have if I just work on one. And what about all those cigar boxes my brother-in-law, Rob, gave us last weekend? Those would make great containers for the hand-bound miniature journals still in process on the drafting table. I also noticed we ate all of the gluten free cinnamon chocolate cookies that lived on the counter by the new long-slice toaster (with collapsible warming rack). Can’t head into a busy work week without a batch of those now, can we?
Sure we can.
And probably will. Once I finish hanging the laundry, I’m gonna make the bed.
Right after I’m done napping in it.
