Tracking the Wild Geese

It's 7:18 in the morning and there's not a sound on the street.

I've been up for a few hours, writing, having tea and some broth. I wrote in two journals and drew a comic. I try to draw a comic every day. I wrote a letter to my daughter and pondered writing one to my mother. But I'll see her on Friday so I decided to be the letter instead of writing one.

Off in the distance, between two tall trees in the foreground, a small flock of geese flies by and I find myself wondering where they are going. At the end of August, the geese begin to be on the move. I have to take my car in for an oil change in about an hour and a half. 

I appreciate these quiet early mornings when I slip into them.

The peace is so palpable, I sometimes want to go back to bed and sleep in that peace. 

I picked up a journal yesterday and it happened to fall open to a page from a few weeks ago, a day that I had been noticing that I hadn't really been paying attention to the goals I created at the beginning of the summer, and I have to admit there was a little harshness from my inner critic going on in my thoughts. 

I talked to a good friend last night and happened to mention it to her. It had been on my mind all day and I was doing some bargaining with myself to see if I could pull out a Hail Mary pass around all this. I also mentioned to her that I had kept my word to myself around this daily writing practice. And that today would be my 90th day of consecutive writing and putting that writing out into the world. 



Ninety days. 

I had to stop and ponder that one a bit.

It feels like a huge accomplishment. To show up for writing every day for 90 days. There were days I did not know how I would do it and learned that I could, even if I could not see in the moment how it would be possible. Some days I simply put myself in front of the computer and opened a new post screen. On some of those days I brought the challenge or the conflict to the writing. Other days I simply surrendered to what wanted to emerge even if I thought that I did not want to write about it. I learned I did not have to write a long essay each time. Sometimes there was simply a clear, short, powerful thought. And that was enough. Sometimes I was not thrilled with what I wrote. But I put it out there anyway. And grew to love even that imperfection. The next time it happened I was able to marshall myself better because I knew I could do it. Some days I realized I would not have a computer with me and I was gifted the tool that could bridge that gap, my tiny Raydem keyboard that works with my iPhone.

The common denominator in all of this is that I showed up for what was most important to me. And it was the consistent showing up that helped me to learn just how important the writing is to me. I think when we make a point to show up, what is not important falls away. And it is not that what falls away is not ever going to be important, although we might find that to be true. The core teaching here is also about timing. 

What might be important now?

Now.

All those other things are still on my list. I've put them onto a more recent page in a notebook I look at every day where I go to organize around what is alive for me. 

I won't make any declarations about all that here and now, because now what it important is this writing. 






The Summer of Self-Love is a daily writing practice created to harness three months for thriving. The goal at the end is to host a dinner party. Sounds like an odd Hero's Journey, doesn't it? Most of them usually are.





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