By mid August I often feel confused about what my job is, about what is priority in the gardens and with the animals, about how it all relates to the outside world, and, crucially, what to do with my hair. I suspect this slightly unmoored feeling is generally owed to a stack of conflicting energies: Most of the world is hot with Back to School Fever, while the pool is still blue and I could eat at least four more watermelons. Also, our family is in a dense Happy Birthday season, with parties and special days left and right, while many members are enduring some damaging and deeply worrisome crises. We try to prop each other up and stay engaged with reality; and we work to celebrate and keep things moving, too, like always. Joy and grief and work and play, all at once. The delicious, brackish water we know so well.

Things are shifting, I can feel it. The same way things shift toward the end of winter, when we get a glimpse of change but then it all buckles down again to remind us we are not in control. An early thaw then a late freeze, that trick. At mid August we might get a glimpse of more serious color in the landscape, tighter, cloudier skies and just barely less daylight after supper, but we are still firmly gripped by summer. Our cars are still ovens for the commute home, and tomato vines refuse to produce new flowers until nighttime temperatures relax. We know that October is there waiting for us, just like April always follows closely after Februrary, but the weeks between could mean anything. So the moment matters greatly. How we spend it, how we feel about it, how we infuse it with meaning.

I feel all at once stifled and ready for change but also panicked, regretful and sad for the season soon ending.

I feel the loss of aggressive sunshine and limited clothing as well as excitement for autumn plans and traditions.

I feel the stunning passage of time as well as deep gratitude for the health of our animals and closeness of friends and family.

I feel like a failure for all the things I did not accomplish in my garden this year but this overwhelming amazement for what happens out there with very little intervention from me. I also feel childlike joy over the garden our girl has grown at her own home. There is nothing like watching that adventure take root.

I feel so happy for all the peace and stability our home has provided all summer long, for people and visiting pups and resident four leggeds alike; and simultanously I hope we travel a bit more in coming years. I hope we rediscover how to play and pause work and worry. I hope our calendar next year includes lots of time off for my husband.

I feel safe and loved and clear eyed about the future but also empty in the way that only a missing loved one can make you feel. It’s always hard to acknowledge that another season, and soon another year, has passed with out her. I have mostly learned to stop setting timelines on God, but occassionally the length of this hard season takes my breath away.

I feel like I spend so much of my waking hours on cemented daily routines, and while they serve us really well, when time feels suddenly precious I crave to break it up.

And so I find my paperback journal and write Senses Inventories, gluing the details of my moments to paper. I make lists of clear, specific blessings and prayers recently answered. I let it all build a crackling, electric awareness of and confidence in the beauty of my life. Life right now, life as the exact and unique gift that has been given. It’s a transformative exercise. It wakes me up and helps me shed the heavier feelings of this in-between season.

And I take lots of extra walks around the farm, with little expectation to be productive. Just looking and absorbing and remembering that this beautiful, imperfect, chaotic little rectangle of Oklahoma is our home. It is a childhood dream come to life, the details of which I barely have shared with anyone over the years, and it is okay for me to accept and enjoy it. In fact, I really should.

I try to see the gardens from new angles and internalize the shapes and colors for what they are according to Creation, not for how they measure against a list of jobs or design advice on some website. I try to rest in the long series of miracles that must happen just in the process of one tiny cosmos seed becoming this five foot tall, ethereal, glossy, fernlike, mysterious widlflower. Also, does anyone else get tranfixed by the word “cosmos” being used both for this pefect flower and for outer space, for all of creation?

When I feel like I have been sleepwalking through routines, I slow down and let Klaus lead the way without rushing him, instead of expecting him to keep up behind me. I pay attention to what he sees and what makes him smile, remembering his first puppy summers and how much he loves this farm, his home. His kindgom. How much all the animals trust him.

I take deep breaths and inhale the basil and manage to laugh at how I always expect the cute little bed shapes I plan in April to stay tidy and petite all the way through August.

I spend more play time with the horses and let them come to me, which they always do. I hug them and wait for them to them let go first, as the saying goes, accepting their massive necks on my shoulder and not fearing for my toes near their hooves. I give thanks for their health a thousand times per day and smell them and feed them extra apples and carrots and kiss them excessiveley when they accept fly spray. I listen to their complicated whinnying language and do my best to whinny back correctly. I look into Dusty’s eyes especially and wonder if he remembers her, if they talk to each other. I look into Chanta’s eyes and tell him thank you for being so gentle with children and small animals.

To stop time, I do my best to pause and text my frends when they cross my mind. We are all busy. Everyone. But my gosh life is rich because of our friends! I hope they feel how treasured they are.

I try to apply thought to details that connect my past to Jessica’s future, like morning glories. LIke so many plants and recipes and books and rituals. I remember her as a toddler so easily, like my mother surely remembers me. And the strands just grow and grow.

I make note of the many pleasures and comforts of living in a small town near other small towns with easy access to big cities, when the mood strikes. It’s common enough to moan about the inconveniences, but I always crave to get home as fast as I can. It’s my paradise. I know it all is such a lavish gift. I know that each animal is a once-in-a-lifetime friendship with a real soul and that their trust is no accident. So I try to hold their gaze as ling as they offer it.

It’s blazing hot now, and windy, and my feet are very tired and my hair needs a miracle and I have packed the next few weeks with about 27% more than it can easily bear. But it’s all perfect. Life is beyond good. I can actively will the clock to slow down just enough to catch my breath, and I can trade the moments and days for glittering jewels, while they are still up for grabs.

To put a dent in time, do things that time can’t take away.
XOXOXOXO