My daughter asked me why I didn’t post anything on my blog last week, as she was coming to expect one every Sunday or Monday. I guess I have been going through writer’s block - or maybe writer’s confusion. I seem to think about too many things that I’d like to share so that I can’t really grasp any one of those ideas fully enough to make good. And then when I do come up with something it sounds great in my head, but not so great on paper. Lately, every post that I have tried to write I have set aside for one or both of these reasons.
Maybe my reasons are a symptom of the things that are going on. I am working to get the fall CSA up and running between rainstorms. And we’ve adopted Zippy which I wrote about previously. Zippy hasn’t been acting right so we have been working with the farrier and now the vet to find what’s wrong. The vet was able to diagnose that Zips tore a tendon that attaches the splint bone to the cannon bone – not a serious thing, but painful to the horse until it heals. So I’ve been thinking a lot about that, and spending extra time at the stable.
Then there are my kids – both away at college. No real problems there, but still, they are my kids and will always be on my mind.
Add my day job to that, the rest of the farm and all the animals, crops, and bees, my blog, sometimes volunteering, and my duties as a Quaker co-clerk
So I am pretty busy which makes it very hard sometimes to relax enough to settle down and let things come to me…This hit home the other night while I was taking Snoops for a walk along the outer fence lines. Every so often I take her out there to eat the weeds, sumac, and mulberry sprouts that I can’t get with the mower. As we slowly moved along the fence row, stopping more than walking, I could hear all the cars and trucks going by on the highway that parallels the fence no less than forty feet away. Suddenly, it sounded like my life – rush after rush, faster and faster. And of late, fast and faster has not been fast enough.
The realization stopped me in my tracks. And I just watched Snoopy, just taking her evening one leaf at a time. A few yards away Louie was content, swaying that huge head of his left and right, rhythmically pulling on leaves of grass, without any apparent sign of anxiety. Beyond Louie, the chickens were gathering near their shed readying to roost for the night…and everything fell quiet, despite the traffic going by. The moment was almost like Quaker Meeting. There, in the small clapboard meeting house with its open door and windows, it is always silent, no matter how much noise the world is making.
I need more moments like those. Moments to just know that I breathe. Moments that will bring me back to ground and teach me that more than anything else I am a living being, and not an economic gear in the world engine.
I need to enjoy the quiet more often…and spend more time away from “time”.
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