On The Cusp of Another Day

It’s a little scary to me how quickly I’ve fallen out of the writing habit. Honestly, I thought I was more disciplined than I’m proving to be. But then, I suspect there are all sorts of things I think I am that I’m actually not. By-the-by, if you have an inkling as to what some of these things might be, I’d just as soon not hear about them, ok?

Well, hell, it’s not like I don’t have an excuse. The weather has finally shifted, albeit reluctantly, even begrudgingly. The ground is bare, the flora caught in the midst of its seasonal metamorphosis from brown to green. It always catches me off guard, how quick it happens. Right now, our pasture is still the impoverished hue of decayed grasses; two weeks from now, we’ll be turning the beasts out onto boot-high grass so green you’d look at it and realize that you didn’t know how green green could be.

As I’ve noted (perhaps more times than strictly necessary), it was a long, hard winter. The woodshed is down to maybe a dozen sticks, the unruly oddment pieces that would not yield to the maul, the misfits passed over back when we could choose otherwise. Well, their time has come, let me tell you. For the second straight winter, we’re gonna suck that woodshed dry of every last BTU. Hell, I might have to start ripping the siding off if we get a May cold snap. This is not something I’m proud of; a half-cord buffer is something I aspire to. But there’s what we aspire to, and then there’s reality, which, come to think of it, is not unlike the differences between how we imagine ourselves to be and how we actually are.

And the driveway: Whooee. Never before has it been such a morass of seemingly bottomless mud and rut, demanding a particular combination of cunning and callousness. You need to know when to choose your line carefully and when to pin-and-grin, shoving the throttle to the floor and hoping your churning tires will carry you to the opposite shore. I shouldn’t admit to enjoying this game as much as I do, so I won’t.

Despite silently admonishing myself for lacking discipline, it feels right to be spending so little time at my desk. I daresay I’ve shed a belt-hole worth of love handle in the past two weeks, and despite the fact that I’ve largely been keeping my thoughts to myself, my mind feels sharp and engaged. The work that stands between us and the coming winter does at times feel overwhelming, particularly late at night (i.e., anytime past 7-ish), but the prevailing sentiment is one of optimism and the elemental satisfaction of laboring on our own behalf. Food, fuel, shelter: This is what we are working toward. This is what consumes our days, our thoughts, our bodies, our minds. It is a gift to be consumed in this way, to wake with the rooster and walk outside, startled by the cool stillness of it all, on the cusp of another day.