Letting Quiet Settle Deeper
Just now, the rain is sliding down the farmhouse windows like a glaze of grace. I can almost see the grass green with each drop. I’ve been sitting here for 10 minutes just listening, letting the patter of rain glide from my ears to my shoulders to send “do” and “hurry” out my finger tips.
© 2011 carterse, Flickr | CC-BY-SA | via Wylio
Last night, Shawn Smucker gave a reading here on the farm. 20 of us gathered over macaroni and pie and the cool whip-induced delicious that we call “salad” here in the South. Then, Philip and Sam (Shawn’s middle son) lit a fire, and Shawn read from The Day the Angels Fell
The evening was soft, slow, ideal. I want more of those.
More of slow means less of do, so I find myself sliding further into a conscious choice to take each day with a little more ease. One of the ways I’m doing that is by posting less frequently to this blog space. I have posted almost every day for almost 7 years, and I love this space because I love all of you who read it.
But a post every day means time every day to think about what I need to say and what you might need to read – every morning, here at this screen, thinking and etching in words.
I’m going to take a little of that time and let my eyes and my language live elsewhere – in longer essays, in the book project I am finally able to seize fully, in plans for this farm. It feels like it’s time.
I know it will take me some time to hit the right rhythm, but at the moment, I plan to post 4 times a week – with Saturdays still for author interviews, Sundays for farm reflections, and Tuesdays and Thursdays for whatever strikes my fancy. (I love that phrase – I like to imagine a match and a figment called a “fancy” sliding against each other.)
I feel nervous at even this small change – all the monsters of “platform” and “sales” and “you don’t matter if no one sees what you write” – are grumbling. But I know this choice is good – for now at the very least – so I’m shushing those critters of ugly in my own mind and pushing forward.
Thank you for pushing forward with me in these days we call life.
Oh, I hear Leo Smucker announcing with the fervor of each of his 9-months that it is time for me to scramble some of our gals’ eggs and get to the business of face-to-face community again.
I’m so grateful for both the people I get to hug with my hands and for those of you I get to hug with my little digital heart.
See you soon.