Garden House

 This is a post I wrote last June but I never posted it. How I long for the green that Spring brings! 

This morning I stumbled out of my bed at 5:30 and started the kettle, not so that I could enjoy a cup of tea, but rather to warm up goat milk for an orphaned fawn. It would seem, that in this particular season of my life, I am learning and re-learning how to adjust to every changing demand of life. Sometimes it feels as though those demands will crush me, however, I want to believe that they are refining and helping me prioritize better. The truth is, while my character is undoubtedly being shaped, many things are being cast to the wayside: like cleaning my home, doing laundry, working out, and carving out time to read in the morning. What, you may ask, is taking precedence in my life other than keeping a fawn and a small herd of children alive? The answer is gardening. It consumes the majority of my waking thoughts. It's all I want to do. |I wish I could say that I was devoting my energy to finishing our homeschool year strong, as we only have a mere four weeks left, but the truth is, we are doing the bare minimum and enjoying every available moment outdoors.  Needless to say, my house is in shambles. There is a name for this condition; my friends over a Homemaker Chic podcast lovingly refer to it as "garden house". Essentially, you are spending so much time out of doors raking, sewing seeds, transplanting, watering, and scheming where to plant things that everything else in your life is put on the back burner. You have chronically dirty fingernails, dirty floors, and mountains of dishes. It's all about priorities and we all only have 24 hours in each day. When I am not gardening we are saying "yes" to all the people. Sometimes at the same time. I can't tell you how many times I have parked a guest on a chair in my garden so that I could visit while I gardened. I call it "productive visiting". I intend to have a really tidy and clean house this fall when the ground is covered with frost and decaying leaves but right now everything is bursting with life and beauty and I want to soak up every blessed moment. 

Setting aside time to write

I am setting aside two mornings per week to write. Something deep inside me needs an outlet for expression, not just because I live a fairly isolated existence but also because my children are not yet riveting conversationalists.  I long to share my heart and its musings in a meaningful way.  I suppose it is a therapy of sorts, an unraveling of the spaghetti that is my brain. 

I love reading works of literature that invite the reader into the inner dialogue of its author. It's like climbing into people's minds to understand how they arrive at their various conclusions. Some of my recent favorites include The Secrets Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert: An English Professor's Journey into Christian Faith"  by Rosaria Butterfield. I also recently enjoyed The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Murial Barbery and The Truth and Beauty: How the Lives and Works of England's Greatest Poets Point the Way to a Deeper Understanding of the Words of Jesus by Andrew Klaven. 

Both reading and writing are an invitation to contemplation and to wrestling with ideas.   Truthfully, I have felt a little exhausted wrestling with ideas the past two years, particularly in light of all the conflicting information that has steamed rolled my direction.  I find myself struggling with the temptation not to think, but rather to stuff every waking moment with someone else's thoughts and opinions on a particular matter. Some of the content I consume is incredibly encouraging, insightful, and motivating but some of it is complete drivel.

It's unhealthy and I am making a concerted effort to invite silence back into my life. Often that looks like sitting in my bay window with a hot cup of tea in the afternoon, just relishing the view. In doing so I find myself more refreshed than I would have if I had spent that time scrolling through Instagram. 

Over the past two years, I have had an uncanny aversion to writing. Even journaling has taken a back seat. I think perhaps,  I am afraid to feel the weight of my emotions and instead, have used podcasts and other diversions to avoid having to sit with my emotions. I know that it is unhealthy and I am making a concerted effort that change that.