brick by brick

I have enjoyed the best short work week, and my heart is hammering with gratitude and excitement. About what? It’s hard to articulate. Hard to narrow it down. The weather certainly helps. Summertime is glorious here, and finally we are stepping into the lush, gilded season. But this is a deeper feeling than just pleasure or relaxation. I feel that wonderful, elusive kind of joy that comes when purpose aligns with both motivation and resources. No, it feels even better than that. It feels like anticipation without nervousness or that sense of scarcity that often accompany it. Like I am fine right where I am, and also I feel something huge coming.

Okay.

I walked outside to snap a photo of the shade garden for this post, because I wanted to share the brick pathway with you. The afternoon has been quiet with the newfound heat (80 degrees today with no wind!), barely a goose honk or horse snuffle, so a soft rustling of dried leaves caught my attention. I assumed it was Romulus behind the cottage. I walked forward and stepped up onto the deck then heard the sound again and saw something flash in my periphery. A snake, a pretty big one, was speeding like quicksilver toward me.

I jumped sideways and backwards all at once and also did a back handspring into the herb garden (stuck the landing, thank-you-very-much) to evade him.

This is most likely Sebastian, the rat snake who has lived beneath our deck for a few years now. I did him no harm, though we often dispatch even harmless snakes for being too near the house or chicken coops. I also did not venture forth for the shade garden photo. Speaking of chickens.

Yesterday, the kids paid me a surprise visit, and as always we had the best conversation and delighted in watching Klaus and Bean play outside. All the time, I am amazed by how it feels to relate to my kids as adults. It is a complete and joyful surprise in life, and I would not trade it for anything.

This morning as we sipped our coffee and absorbed about one third of the news, Handsome and I started sketching out plans for two very worthy celebrations here at the farm, both of them slated for later in the summer. I won’t spill the beans yet, but suffice it to say that not planning many gatherings these past fifteen months really had my hostess energy bottle-necking. The relief, the fire hydrant of ideas, almost made me nauseous. In a good way.

We chip away at lofty goals and heartfelt dreams one act or one job at a time. One day, one hour, one moment is all we can ever spend at once. That’s okay, as long as we spend most of them really well. Moving slowly and steadily toward our hopes and best intentions, building our unique paths, is totally fine done brick by brick. This might be the best lesson running (and specifically marathon training) has taught me: See your biggest goal and break it down in a realistic way, then focus on and complete one task, one workout, one mile, one step at a time. Amazingly, they add up, and they add up quickly. Even the hard ones.

Keep at it, friends!

“You own everything that happened to you.
Tell your stories.
If people wanted you to write warmly about them,
they should’ve behaved better.”
~Anne Lamott
XOXOXOXO