Priorities

Scene from a Morning, and other thoughts

Priorities

I’m washing dishes
Through the window I see 
the dog sitting
in the corner of the yard
watching for the blue
pickup that just left
to come back

I scrub a plate
and another
Rinse and place them dripping
into the drainer
Pick up the tongs that
have remnants of 
from last night’s
sausages

I hold the tongs
in the air
Put them back on the counter

Save them
for the dog to lick

The sun has finally come out this morning. I am sitting out in the yard—the same yard the dog was sitting in, awaiting the return of the truck. He is lying down a bit away from me, wishing I would play tug with him. We are both soaking up the warm rays.

My to-do list includes doing this today, and finishing a letter I started a week or so ago. I put them on the list not only to help get them done, but so that I can feel okay about spending my time doing these things that on the surface don’t seem very “productive.” Hopefully this means I will get them both done. Ultimately, they are critical to my well-being, certainly in ways that doing dishes or vacuuming or figuring out what healthcare policy to apply to, or even pruning the blackberry vines are not. Not writing weighs on my heart, on the fullness of me. And since I have been doing very little of it lately (some of you have noticed, I know), there has become a larger and larger gap between the outer shell of me and the vast world of me that lives inside of that shell. I am trying to expand out again, close that gap, so that the World of Me is again more integrated into, and even oozes out of the pores of the outer shell.

That’s one way of looking at it anyway.

It has been months since I have been able to sit out here in the sun. It has not been warm or dry enough, and the sun has not been making awfully many appearances lately. When it has, I seem most often to be doing something else, something that precludes sitting in the glory of it and writing.

I know I am not alone in all this/that. The world we all are living in right now is inordinately demanding of our time and energy and attention. Even if we are not constantly consuming the “news,” what is going on in the world manages to seep into our lives in spite of our best efforts to keep it away. We can’t help but bump into it at the supermarket, the laundromat, in the changing nature of the changing seasons.

Yet, as I sit here a feel a very light breeze on which there are hints of wood smoke, evaporated moisture, livestock, and living trees and other plants breathing out what I need to breathe in. In spite of all the talk (and largely human-caused reality) of scarcity and destruction and short-sightedness, the sun and the rain continue to supply their nourishment without judgement, without prejudice, without any sense of one person or plant or species being more deserving than another. All are showered with abundant motherly love with no hierarchy. Though we are messing with those systems, they are still operating much as Nature intended.

It’s hard to stop long enough to notice. Hard not to get so caught up in the everyday struggles and trying to stay afloat and avoid the worst of things, to let yourself stop for a few minutes, go outside, breathe, feel, smell, taste even, that from which we all came and to which we will all return.

Hark, I (and the dog) hear the blue truck turning off the main road and crunching onto our driveway. The dog has longsince licked the tongs, they rest in the drainer with the plates, so now he is wildly welcoming the blue truck home. I will let him into the house so he can play his role as welcoming committee.

I AM ALWAYS HAPPY TO READ YOUR COMMENTS!