Not my terms. Better

On Tuesdays I take a day off. To make that mean something, it's also a day offline. This creates a barrier between me and "just one email!" that quickly slides into a few hours tending to work-related tasks. These internet detoxes feel so precious. I find my mind free up remarkably. Thoughts wander creatively, connections occur that I generally don't create time for when I'm guided by my To-Do list.

Going offline and going away feels like maybe the most refreshing thing these days. Like, dewy sunrise refreshing. Like, hot day cold lake refreshing. Like, big juicy peach refreshing.

I keep two notebooks nearby: one for work-related things so if I remember something I have to tend to I can write it down and relax my brain. The other is for creative musings.

Last Wednesday morning, I sat on a screened-in porch in a cabin on a farm in West Virginia and let my mind soften into boredom. Meaning, the incessant "what's next?!" chatter in my mind wasn't tended to. Slowly, it stopped. And then I could be where I was. I listened to the birds chattering and thought about how my grandmother (Tennessee-raised and Georgia-residing) used to say, "the birds are fussing." In that context, her turn of phrase felt incredibly accurate. I've long been a fan of Southern colloquialisms-- I think they're beautiful-- but they also felt more true in that setting.

I thought of her other ways of speech-- "I'm fixing to." Yup, when you're not in a rush you are fixing to. I was fixing to get up from my coffee for about a solid hour. Instead, I poured more and Kevin and I played board games.

I read a quote from Thomas Wolfe:

"Something has spoken to me in the night... and told me I shall die, I know not where. Saying: '(Death is) to lose the earth you know for greater knowing, to lose the life you have, for greater life, to leave the friends you loved for greater loving; to find a land more kind than home, more large than earth."

In the woods, I don't feel too important. The meaning of life doesn't have to be discovered-- it's everywhere. Animals are free but they're also bound by their hunger and search for food. Plants climb to the sun and they're torn down. I don't have to figure it all out. What I do doesn't matter so much. I just have an invitation to create alongside all of creation.

I read a quote from Walt Whitman:

"Now I know the secret of making the best persons; it is to grow in the open air and eat and sleep with the earth."

Kevin is a big fan of Uncle Walt but especially in these words. It's hard to complain about bug bites and desires for creature comforts when a peach feels so satisfying. A few days in a cabin in the woods seemed to scale the world both up and down. I felt far more integrated into the whole of things and the whole of things felt far more expansive. I took open-air showers under a bucket of well water. Afterwards, I used the olive oil we'd brought to moisturize (my long-time travel trick). I put on my pajamas and felt so unbelievably comfortable-- so much more comfortable than if I'd had hot water plumbing and luxurious robes and potions. The simplicity made effort and ease proportional.

I read a quote from Ron Rash:

"That's what wilderness is-- nature on its terms, not ours, and there's no middle ground."

And I felt grateful to this invitation into exhilaration, into movement, though it moved at a pace much gentler and different from time as I experience it on the grid. Life felt challenging and sweeter.

When I came home I answered some writing prompts about how I want my home life to feel. Happily, it's largely consistent with my vision: calm, comfortable, clean, spacious...

To have space to think and observe.

To feel where I am.

To feel at peace with what is.

To be receptive to it all.