Last night, I took a watering can and stood on our deck to water the two hanging baskets Philip gifted me for Mother’s Day, my first Mother’s Day as a mother. The flowers – for those who care – are lobelia with its indigo hue and petunias in magenta and out-right purple, colors that I would not have picked earlier in my life. Too garish for 30-something Andi.
But now, these colors – the vibrant vermillion and tangerine of the lantana, the true red of the geraniums, the gold and orange-orange of the marigolds – bring me all the garish.
See, I needed these flowers, the gentle planting of them in prepared beds, to help me make some choices. Big, big, big choices in my life. Choices that required me to pick one amazing, rich, soul-filling thing over one that is also amazing and rich but also exhausting. My life is about to become a whole heck of a lot more spacious, even as it contracts in some measurable ways.
I know I’m being cryptic, and I will be more forthright soon. But for now, here is what I feel on this Wednesday morning in late May:
For the first time in a long time, I feel like I can stretch my arms wide, throw my head back, and not bump up against myself. Oh, the gift of that feeling – it’s like oxygen after a long swim to the surface.
Here’s the bottom line – all this vague color is going to give me so much more time for words – for my words, for client words, for words in books, and I am here for it. Present. Breathing deep. Sinking in here.
Friend, I don’t know the particulars of your life – of the lunches you pack or the three jobs you work, of the regular gatherings of friends or the immaculate vegetable garden you tend. But here is what I have learned of late – even a life full of all the very best things, the things of dreams and hopes, the things of delight and joy – even they can become too much, especially for a creative person. To write, we need space, we need oxygen, we need pockets of nothing. I hope you can make the choices to find your pockets.
I’m glorious at the pockets I’m seeing opening before me. Glorious, friends. Stay tuned for more straightforwardness soon. 😉