Silence calls to me

A frosty evening

The past two weeks I haven’t posted; I opened my word document and let the cursor blink for a couple of minutes. Then I closed it and put my laptop away. What to write?

Farming is at a nail-biting, anxiety-inducing lull. The in-between, stretched out moment of waiting. It’s neither winter nor spring; judging by the snow and frigid temps. Oh and the forecast is saying snow this weekend.

The silence calls to me.

It’s the peace before the storm, the flurry of activity that we fondly know as planting. This is followed by a season of hard work, sweat, rain (hopefully), spraying, cultivating and finally harvest. Not necessarily in this order although harvest is usually the culmination. 😊

It’s a time of going farther down the work/repair list and doing those little things, the final spit polish. And apparently, it’s the beginning of auction season. I still lack the ability to follow an auctioneer so I volunteer to hold the place down and do bookwork (and maybe blog).

The silence calls to me.

I search for words to describe the beauty of hoar frost that we had visit us for a couple of days. A photo barely does it justice. The words? Well, the soft silence and sheer enjoyment gently closed the door on any words. Some things are better appreciated in the moment.

Creativity’s spark was muted and quiet. I appreciated the coffee moments with friends more. The usual endless racing litany of words, ideas, phrases, scenes and on serenely strolled on by in my mind; without demanding they form as words on paper, to wait for another day.

The silence calls to me.

The call isn’t a shout for attention, it’s a soft whisper like a willow tree gently waving in an unseen breath of wind, to come sit and stay a while. The silence is peaceful and a welcoming place to gather thoughts and order the passion, the zest for life.

Life can neither be ordered nor can it be predicted. If you sit and stay a while in the silence calling, you can plan the steps to direct it. A time to mull and savor ideas.

All kinds of thoughts and plans happening!

The silence calls to me (it doesn’t say much). It rarely calls often and it’s like a good friend you see once in a great while so you take the time to sit and catch up. Life shouldn’t be always lived uber busy, although its nice, silence every now and a rare then is pleasant. Sometimes its exactly what you didn’t need in the ‘now’ but in the ‘then’ it was perfect.

May your week of ‘sprinter’ (spring & winter) find you contentment, coffee with friends and robins on the lawn.

Editing creativity’s spark

You know those Monday’s where the day starts off rough (forgot to set the alarm?!) and you know you have a list of things to get done? But you forgot to write a sticky note with said list or at least a hint of what you wanted to do. Rewrites are like that.

I took last week off to focus on my other writing. Too many times it never made it on that sticky note of things to do. Or it always seemed to be the only item not crossed off and then (horrors), the sticky note was thrown away. That last, of the last, item still not crossed off.

My New Year’s resolution (or one of them) was to be more intentional with my blog this year. (This topic jogged my memory and I remembered a resolution, yay!) Being intentional, I mean as, don’t forget to write a post or to write several short ones in advance so I wouldn’t have to think about it during the busy seasons (like planting or harvest). It’s okay to write a few in advance but it got to (last year) where I felt I was skipping out on my own passion for writing and taking the ‘easy’ way out and not being real, in the moment, with life. And the agriculture life doesn’t sit still either, the farmer or the plants. I decided that a week off from blogging was in order and to be intentional (for the moment at least) about my other writing.

Rewrites are hard, scrapping some of my favorite or most-attached-to moments. Sometimes the muse, or creativity, takes a leave of absence. And the process goes something like this:

With creativity out for coffee and back who knows when, the back-to-the-drawing-board moments get real; usually with complete minutes of time with… nothing. How to jump start that creativity? Maybe jumper cables? Hmm. Maybe a little too electrifying for my taste. Coffee just makes the floor tap, I mean, my feet tap on the floor. Chocolate is a distraction unfortunately. The crackling wrappers and the plain, absolute goodness of great chocolate, you see how it’s a distraction; especially when the bag is mysteriously empty. Silence is golden but sometimes suffocating. And it begins to echo in your mind, definitely drowning out any possible creative thought. The radio lures you into singing along (in this case, Christmas carols or songs). Print-out copies are a blessing. You can scratch out lines, write ideas, and scribble arrows to move sentences (or whole paragraphs!).

Turns out just me looking at my own work wasn’t enough. The whole sentimentality thing is a strong force; plus, who doesn’t think their story is awesome? (Just maybe not in the original, original version.) My critique group is awesome! I’ve learned to better switch between artist/creator and the rewrite/editor mode. Critique groups are the mirror of truth. Many a fun word like ‘rakish’ has died one tap of the delete button at a time, sadly. However, their comments only help me shape it into the story that I’d envisioned in creativity’s spark. Paring words down like peeling an apple is truly an art; much like peeling an apple with one long, curly peel. Too easily do I get caught up in the miniscule details and drawing back to look at the story from the outside is the challenge.

So rewrites, while difficult at times and a crazy, rollercoaster ride of fun and inspiration at others; are positive change. Unless it ends up being one of those rare moments of deleeeeeeeeete; everything gone and a blank page staring back at me. Ah well. Clearly that spark of creativity was weak.

May your week be sunny, the candy canes sweet and the eggnog rich.

How to move to Canada

Step 1) Don’t go. Just don’t go. You married the love of your life (he’s so worth it, right?) but really no, just say no and stop the madness before it reaches the top of the rollercoaster. There’s no getting off then.

Step 2) *sigh* you did it, didn’t you? You agreed to move to Canada. Good luck, you’ll need it. And patience.  Lots and lots of it. If you did the whole ‘hurry up and wait’ thing in the military (like I did) then you’re good to go. Which means you’re probably really good at paperwork, a useful skill again for you, lucky you. 

Step 3) Find your favorite hamster and oil his wheel up good. Maybe four hamsters would better. You’ll need them to help you keep going on the paperwork. Those hamsters, they don’t stop running so keep up the momentum on that paperwork. (And when he says let him fill it all out for you, do some here and there for him, it makes crunch time a.k.a procrastination ‘I’m behind on filling these out’ go smoother.)

Step 4) Read the blogs, yahoo answers or anything you can about moving to Canada even that almighty, has-all-the-answers government website (it’s at least good for the uber generic information).

Step 5) Submit that paperwork. I’d mail it certified so you know it got there, because who wants to go through all tort- ahem, enjoyment again?!

Step 6) Celebrate with a glass of wine. You’re done!

Step 7) Thunk your head against the wall. The realization, you’ve just started (like the ice berg that the Titanic hit) has sunk in.

Step 8) Enjoy this blog :) It might actually help, or at least give some perspective on the hyphenated life.