I have a nard time saying no. It’s a terrible deficit and a great strength depending on which side of the coin happens to land up after the toss. I agreed to give a presentation to my professional community next month knowing there was not enough time to adequately prepare. But the board chairperson was in a jam, and it was on a topic for which I have a lot of passion and interest, so again, I said “yes” when I should have said “no”.
I woke up last night at 3:00 am and dutifully lay there until 4:00 trying to fall back asleep. At 4:03 I thought, “What’s the use?” and got up to work on my presentation. I parked my computer and research articles on the dining room table which has a view through the floor-to ceiling windows in the den and out past the quiet winter-cloaked garden and twenty miles away to the twinkling security lights of the farmhouses across the valley. On the right hand side of the dining room are windows which overlook the front pasture, directly east where the sun made its pale ocher adverstisement and then burst into an orange-gold-pink announcement just as I was halfway through my talk and on my second cup of coffee.
Today, in the full sun of morning, with my husband tromping around in his work boots on the back porch and the dogs arguing over a chew-toy I am grateful for the silence of the night. I am grateful for the stillness of all things save the little mouse who is too smart for traps and lives in the walls between the bedroom and the stairs. I am grateful for the old clock that my father wound faithfully each week and that still tick-tocks away on my own mantle, keeping the wakeful company.
Now it is time to leave the reverie that sleeplessness provided and go make bread for the week. And bake the granola and feed the chickens and do the things that people do when the sun is up.
On Walnut Ridge 