Week 6, Day 3

butternut squashIt seems like not so long ago I was sitting here glorying in having a whole 6 weeks away from my job, 6 weeks at home recovering from back surgery.  Six whole weeks!  And now I'm sitting here contemplating the fact that there are only three days left.  And trying not to describe them as 

only three days of freedom remaining

since that just feeds the dread of returning to work, of finding myself back in that situation for the foreseeable future.  And I'm really trying not to wreck the time off I still have with negative thinking about what will be.  Or really, what may be.  Since who knows for sure.

Before taking this break, I resisted the temptation to make myself a list of things To Do.  Which is how I usually approach everything.  I didn't want to put that pressure on myself.  And though Joe kept reminding me that this was not a vacation, I knew -- and I was so right about that -- that it was actually better than vacation, because I enter every vacation with a long To Do list.

This was pure restoration in every way.

The surgery was a success and I only have the barest hint of pain now (which is my fault for going to The Dailey Method last weekend and working every muscle in my entire body.  Who knew it was possible to be that sore, like someone pushed me down a tall staircase and I went bumping down, hitting every step along the way).  I have had so much time here on my own, and with lovely company, and with Mr Burns, and now with three days to go, I'm looking back and thinking about what I did with all that time, what I can do with what remains.  

What do I have to show for it?

First, here are the things I didn't do.  I didn't write a book.  I didn't drive my car for a month, although I was a passenger.  I didn't lose weight and get fit.  Whatever.  But here's what I did.  I did:

- spend time in the garden every day, watching the orgy of bees in the poppies, planting, weeding, tending, staring at bees, observing everything budding, changing, the finches nesting, hatching, fledgelings flying;

- make a plan for a farm stand sale sometime this summer:

- pull honey off our hives twice with Joe and give lots away:

- make lip balm with beeswax from our colonies and give it all away:

- harvest, eat, dehydrate, bake into tarts, and give away, 90% of the fruit produced by our apricot tree this year, leaving many for birds and squirrels;

- bake, a lot, whether it was cookies, tarts, or croissants;

- check our home hives by myself, first time I ever did that entirely on my own.  It's taken me a long time to feel comfortable, to feel like I really had this, but now, I got it;

- enjoy the morning light here in our piece of paradise day after day.  I can't believe for how long in my life, for years and years, I'd leave our little house at 8 every single morning, either to work or yoga, and miss this incredible light, the birds, the trees, all of it;

- enjoy visits from so many lovely people, my parents included, new friends and old friends, babies and dogs;

- go to the museum three times with my mother-in-law, each time reminded of how essential an activity this is for me.  so great!

- start a Mastermind group with my sister to talk weekly and encourage each other with our blogs and businesses.  That's really going amazingly well, so inspiring and so fun to have someone keeping me accountable and on track;

- attend the Open Garden Exchange and make some new friends, plus got even more fired up about our farmlet (see farm stand idea above);

- write a lot and add features to The Force Expansive, like Country Mouse Monday, and coming soon -- a store!

- signed up finally, after much hemming and hawing, for the BlogHer ad network.  Also coming soon!

- possibly get a part-time job teaching beekeeping, still waiting for details on that;

- read a lot, even though I'm still behind on my Goodreads goal for the year.  There's still time!

- finish watching all four seasons of The Tudors, start watching Misfits, a show I love

- oh my goodness, spend three days working on our taxes and realize the full extent of everything I didn't do well last year and make a plan for how I'm doing it all better this year.  Last year was rough, now that I look at the numbers and really see why.  I knew it the whole time, but the full picture that emerges when all the numbers are plugged and analyzed really paints the picture.  Which reminds me of something I do enjoy about my j-o-b, which is that paint-by-numbers, really, that way of seeing the contours of the business and its environment by looking at what the P&L says.  

- have lunch with Sacheen Littlefeather and Rebecca, amazing;

- visit Peggy at her new house in Point Reyes;

- get my hair highlighted and pink-ed at Siren, yahoo!

- make plans for comedy (Paula Poundstone tomorrow night, Louis CK in November);

- lovingly tend my house and garden every single day, reveling in how beautiful it all is, how lucky I am in every way, what a gift it is to move without pain, what a delight to have such a great husband and partner to work alongside at making this place more and more amazing with every passing day, more and more ours, more and more home.

Is it any wonder I don't want to go back?

Still to come: making a split off the Shop Bees and installing the resulting colony at home, making three hives here, watching the start of the Tour de France, working on Made of Awesome for July and August (the prizes are going to GREAT, y'all!), reading, chilling, eating.  

This break has been so good for me.  This break IS so good for me, to have enough time to stand on my two feet without pain in the middle of my own life, to have enough time for my own creative pursuits, to MAKE things actually -- jars of honey, baskets of food, tarts, lip balm -- actual tangible things to give away, to gift others with the bounty of this place.  And now that I've had a taste of this making and this giving, I am really profoundly changed.

I'll go back but I'll never really go back.

Thanks to this break, I'm clearer than ever about who I am and what I need and what I will and won't do.  Next week will be interesting.  Next week will be different from these past 6 weeks of my life, but I, I will be the same: clear, creative, purposeful.  Like a bee.  I'll do what I need to do, but I'll keep collecting nectar just the same.

XX 

Comments

[Kelly McCray]

It all sounds so CIVILIZED! Paula Poundstone! I love her. I saw her a long time ago at the punchline. Have fun! I have comedy on my list, too.