Getting Ready for Half Time: Taking a Time Out in the 100 Day Challenge
Wow. So close to the big five-o.
I can’t believe that we are almost fifty days away from the launch of Blush: A Mennonite Girl Meets a Glittering World
You’ve been wondering whether I would keep blogging daily for 100 Days, haven’t you?
Me too.
I want to give you a break and myself a break.
And I want to prepare to share some good news at the 50 Day point.
So, until then, continue to enjoy and record your New Beginnings. By now you know the drill. You can come back to this link every day and leave me a message about your New Beginning. Quite apart from the prizes and the contest, I prize your spirit as you challenge yourself to do something new, something that risks vulnerability, something that helps you grow.
That’s what all this writing is about.
See you in four days! I’ll share what I’ve been up to then.
In the meantime, I want to follow the example of the lovely pear tree growing so close to our deck. Every day I want to grow organically: get bigger, a little riper, and eventually develop the final touch –a slight blush!
The pear tree is loaded this year. Will these be ripe in 54 more days?
Took our grandson to Big Meadows today with Ron. That was a first for both of us. While I had a general idea of where I wanted us to go, I was surprised at my lack of need to “over-organize” the event once we arrived.
While we were hiking in a general direction,grandson Dillon wanted to stop many times, get into and out of the stroller, collect rocks, walk in the opposite direction, etc. I was very much in the moment and felt thankful for and fascinated with his growing imagination. It did not matter that we did not arrive at the geographic destination of the woods edge. It was truly the journey that filled me with delight.
Shirley, our grandchildren are here to remind us of how to enjoy the journey. I can just see the two of you learning from Dillon, taking time to “smell the roses.”
I was waiting for the right time and place to share this poem from The Writer’s Almanac today. I just loved it.
The Longing of the Feet
by Wesley McNair
At first the crawling
child makes his whole body
a foot.
One day, dazed
as if by memory,
he pulls himself up,
discovering, suddenly,
that the feet
are for carrying
hands. He is so
happy he cannot stop
taking the hands
from room to room,
learning the names
of everything he wants.
This lasts for many years
until the feet,
no longer fast enough,
lie forgotten, say,
in the office
under a desk. Above them
the rest of the body,
where the child
has come to live,
is sending its voice
hundreds of miles
through a machine.
Left to themselves
over and over,
the feet sleep,
awakening
one day
beyond the dead
conversation of the mind
and the hands.
Mute in their shoes,
your shoes
and mine,
they wait,
longing only to stand
the body
and take it
into its low,
mysterious flight
along the earth.
“The Longing of the Feet” by Wesley McNair, from Lovers of the Lost: New & Selected Poems. © David R. Godine, 2010. Reprinted with permission. (buy now)
Oh my! How true. Thank you Wesley McNair for writing this poem and Shirley Showalter for sharing it with me and others.