5 for a dollar

I should be planting things.  Instead I'm dismantling and digging things up before the community garden deadline.  It seems so counterproductive, but all in do time as they say and they are usually right.

It was a really bad growing year.  The Memorial Day frost was a killer...literally.  Then it rained the entire month of June.  I remember sending my kids off with a bucket to play in while I got down on my hands and knees, and tried to dig trenches in the muck.  I failed.  In July, the weeds started taking over and by the middle of August I let them.

It reminds me that you can plan the heck out of something and still come away empty handed.  Expect nothing, appreciate everything.

“I wanted a perfect ending.  Now I've learned, the hard way, that some poems don't rhyme, and some stories don't have a clear beginning, middle, and end.  Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what's going to happen next.  Delicious Ambiguity.” - Gilda Radner

In the unexpected I look for the lessons.  Like uncertainty, the lessons are always there.

I started off yesterday morning on my computer looking for photo editing software and after the process of "think this, click that, etc...repeat", I found my way to the Ohio Ecological Food and Farm Association.  I looked at their events calendar and noticed they were holding a sustainable farm tour and workshop at a farm about a half an hour away from me and...

"It's today.  I can't believe it.  It's today!"  Hello serendipity.

It was a great experience.  I walked around with dirt in my shoes and the sun on my face, in full appreciation of both and all of the stuff that goes on in between.  I took good notes.  I left feeling empowered.  I'm really finding the absolute truth in...once you declare a path for yourself the windows of opportunity start opening up...all part of the beautiful unexpected.

I went to the local thrift store the other day and found a small stack of those cardboard masterpieces.  One of them, a vase full of flowers, caught my eye.  "You have some paint by number looking pictures out in the garage.  How much are they?"

"A dollar," the owner said.  "I'm trying to clear some things out of here." 

I thought my vase full of flowers worthy of a dollar, so I got it and brought it back to the register.  "Where are the rest of them?" she asked. "I want you to take the whole stack."

"For a dollar?" 

"Yes!" 

Well, alrighty then and I did.  I don't know what I'm going to do with them yet, but I know they won't go to waste.

It reminds me that you can plan the heck out of something, plan for a certain outcome and then somehow walk away with more than you bargained for.

Delicious ambiguity sure is delicious.

the awkward second post

As a kid, I remember going back to school after summer vacation and completely forgetting how to use my pencil. That's what this feels like.  What am I doing here again?  Please bear with me while I figure it out.

I watched a really good video the other day...Ira Glass on storytelling.  Have you seen it?  It's a great message of the fail fast, fail often variety.  It's the kind of stuff that keeps me going, especially right here, right now.  I'm here to fail and it's refreshing to admit that.  Onward through the gap!

I'm sad to see summer come to an end, because with it goes the garage sales.  Last Friday I sat in someone's garage on their old, unsold furniture and chatted for, what felt like, hours.  I fell in love with their dog "Beefy".  When I left, they walked me to the curb, both of us saying how nice it was to meet each other.  

I exchanged my phone number with three other people, at different times, after discussing stuff like autism, farming, and Polaroid cameras.  I found some really good deals, but at the end of the day I was high on the people.  It filled me up and made me brave. Thanks people! 

I went to visit the house I feel I'm meant to live in, but it's a far, far reaching thing.  For now I'm just going to work on taking one awkward baby step after the other. 

a fresh start

I just chucked three years worth of blog archives.  It was a tough decision, but I'm feeling pretty good about it. I made a hard copy of everything, so it's not lost forever.  I just needed a fresh start...a clean slate...a new beginning.

I've struggled, the past three years, to find my voice...not only online, but in the real world as well.  I was feeling pressure to pick a direction, but I was also paralyzed by the fear of picking the wrong one.  Stuck at the dreaded crossroads.

Out of pure frustration, I stopped forcing myself to make a move, and did the only other thing I hadn't tried yet. I sat down in the middle of my indecision, and did nothing, except ask myself one question...why?  I didn't need to know what.  I needed to know why.   After a while though, I didn't even need to know why.

I sat with myself long enough to realize that the what and the why were the same thing.  It's everything that I have right in front of me...everything within arms length.

While I sat doing nothing, I played with my kids, I tended my garden, I took better care of myself, and I laughed a lot.  I found everything in my time spent doing nothing. 

I think the dreaded crossroads are just some kind of mental double vision; a trick illusion meant to drive us crazy. 

Once I decided to chill (and by chill I mean, stop stressing about what I was going to do with my life, and just start living my life), I noticed there was only one path stretched out in front of me...mine...this one.  Yee haw.

Welcome to my new online home!  I hope you'll feel comfortable here.

(Time lapse video of Arts LIFT creating the above mural for Angel Falls Coffee Co.)