A change

I am not sure when the change occurred, but it did and now I find myself being hyper productive. Not hyper-productive in a compulsive or neurotic way, full of shoulds which have troubled me in the past, but of true joy and excitement. I have so many ideas to write out, so much to plant, so much to pick, so much to can, so many people to write letters to, so many lovely photos to frame, I feel like I'm busting and sometimes I can't fall asleep til midnight, tossing and turning as I dream about my beets and how Harriet Fasenfest told me to cover up their shoulders a little longer to encourage sweetness, or about the sun-veil I'm going to rig by sewing together some sheets that will protect my lettuce starts from the July heat.

Oh, that Harriet. I love her. I love that she dedicated her gem of a book, The Householder's Guide to the Universe, to Wendell Berry. And I love Wendell, too. He is certainly my favorite author these days and I feel like the two of them are busy at work stirring up something inside me, a thing that has always been there, and it is sprouting and growing into something that resonates with my core. These are some wise old souls, Harriet and Wendell.

I think it all started with another book, a book that I didn't care for so much -- The Happiness Project. This was a book assigned for book club, and I read it with the same joy that I read Faulkner in high school: none. But I found it curious that reading a happiness book, of all things, would be so painful to me. And I realized something quite substantial in my distaste. The author, Gretchen Rubin, sets aside a year to do all of the things that one is supposed to do to be happy. She organized her closet, joined a gym, decluttered, forced herself to smile more -- and I just found it all so self-serving and silly. Why, why, why was it so hard for this woman to be happy? She even said that she was happy, but not as happy as she could be. It wasn't enough for the glass to be full, it had to runneth over -- and that gap between full and runneth over was so annoying that she had to devote a year to remedy it.

But Gretchen approached happiness in a way that I never have. I have always looked at my circumstances, whatever they are, and learned to be happy within their parameters. I am completely passive about my happiness -- I take what comes and if it doesn’t fit just right, I attempt to modify myself, my perception, to deal with it. I have never really tried to change the circumstance itself – to be more active about my happiness. That alternative way of looking at things really rocked my world. Isn’t that silly? To realize that I can change things, do things – really, whatever I want – without feeling like I have to ask permission? That it’s okay to be more proactive about my life? And that no one else is responsible for my life but me? I have heard it all before. But now it has my name on it.

So, I started getting up at 5:45 each morning and doing vinyasa yoga at a wonderful, soulful place downtown. I am amazed to see how the body follows the mind – and that where the body resists, the mind resists. I am unconventionally good at twisting my body, particularly my waist and back, in to whatever direction the teacher asks. And in my person too, I can contort according to another’s wishes. No problem there – I love pleasing, love accommodating. But – to hold a position, particularly those involving an open heart, and to allow myself to relax in the openness, wow. To breathe while being open. Now, that’s a challenge. It’s fascinating.

There are so many other things to share, so much that I have discovered I can do to be more proactive about my life, so many lessons I am suddenly seeing through yoga, in the garden, in cooking, and in raising Tate, but I think I will resist the urge to spill it all out here at once. I am writing a lot – in fact, I don’t have enough time in the day to write enough – and feel like the ideas are coming at me in a flood.

More soon.