I don't have ideas anymore.
Used to be, I'd take a shower and the thoughts would run into my brain like soap runs into my eyes, and my heart would burn to get them out.
Now, thoughts pass through before I can catch them. I think, "Maybe I'll write about that," and then I think, "Write about what?"
The move nearly killed me. That must be part of it.
It's over now, finally, after a year of owning two houses and going back and forth, trying to tend two gardens (or six, or seven, depending on how you count), and trying to keep six toilets from growing mold. It got to the point where I'd slump in my seat of the van with an empty mind, my body numb between the aches and tingles, and just wait for life to fall on me as we drove across the country from one house to the other. Some item I needed always seemed to be in the other place, and I gave up trying to fix it. Now, at the end, I have two of lots of things. Two jugs of bleach. Two bottles of Dawn. Two large containers of Oxyclean. Those are just the ones I noticed this morning.
Yesterday I sat on the front walk and picked deadheads off a pink coreopsis. The air was crisp, the sun was warm, and the tendrils of the plant gave way easily between my fingernails, satisfying little pops of tiny dried flower-heads gone to seed. I thought, "I would be happy if all I ever had to do again was sit here and deadhead this plant." It simply floated into my head, that thought, and I wondered why.
Why do I like to work outside, puttering from this to that, dragging hoses around, carrying sprinkling cans, plucking yellow leaves and spent blossoms? Yesterday I tore out the last of the cosmos, which never really bloomed, and if they were planning to bloom in October, well, that's just too late. Long ago, we took a parenting course that taught us, "Slow obedience is disobedience," which, in retrospect, I'm not sure I entirely agree with, but those words echoed loudly in my head as I yanked out those cosmos.
Yet, some things are happening. We now only own one house, for one, and that is a great relief. God removed a barrier, and our house sold. This is a matter for great thanksgiving. For another, we finally ventured out to visit a church, the first time since the Corona Virus has been at large. It was a good visit, a visit to a place where the people were truly loving, in a way we've rarely experienced. A miracle may have occurred on Sunday morning, and I am still pondering the implications, unready to elaborate.
May God show us the way. May He continue to work His will. May His glory dominate the earth.
For the earth will be filled
with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord
as the waters cover the sea.
~Habakkuk 2:14
