Contemplating Today’s Work
I woke up with a head full of worry about the world and the future, so I got out of bed instead of stewing in it. The light outside the window felt like pre-dawn because cloud cover softened the 8am light. No one else was awake, so I moved freely through my thoughts and spaces undisturbed. I have nothing on the calendar for today. Today’s task list is similarly sparse. The urgency of summer conventions is gone, and I hit my book deadline, which means today is unassigned. I have not pre-planned my efforts by hour. Instead I can wander and consider what to do.
I want to work on sanding cabinets.
I have only a couple of months left before the weather is too cold for stain and varnish in my unheated garage. I need to get these finished so that they are ready for installation as soon as I can line up both a work crew and enough money to pay for a work crew. Odds are strong I can make that happen in the spring. But that thought path leads back to the thoughts which I tried to escape, so instead I look ahead to the work of today: sanding.
I step outside to breathe morning air. The first signs of fall are beginning. Soon all the green leaves on the trees will be as golden and as discarded as this one. A precursor of things to come.
Fall is gorgeous, but after that is winter with bare trees, not enough light, and cold. Winter is sometimes hard on me. I look at this lone golden leaf and my mind wants to rush ahead to all the hard things to come. Instead I turn to look at all the things which are still green. It is too early to mourn the lack of green when I am still surrounded by it. If I rush ahead to mourning, I’ll miss the green today.
A beautiful dandelion puff stands tall over my lawn space. I pause to admire it for a moment.
Then I take a closer look at my clover. I’m loving the developing biodiversity of what used to just be turf grass.
One of the things I could do today is scatter more seeds. Fall is a good gardening season. Any effort I can put in before the weather gets cold will reap benefits next spring, and all the years after.
I step closer to my grape vines and discover that I’ve currently got some reaping to do. The grapes are ripe.
For the first September in a long time, I don’t have a big trip across the middle of the month. (I have a small trip at the end of the month, but it doesn’t require much prep.) This means I might be able to harvest and process grape juice this year. That might lead to grape jelly. I still have an abundance of raisins from past years, but I might make some of those too.
And now I see the pattern in my morning. All of my things are showing me how today’s work is connected to what came before and what came next. I can’t change the past. I can’t control the future. Yet the choices I make today are dependent on the past and create the choices I’ll have available in the future. If I get the cabinets stained, I have the option to install them midwinter, or next spring, or whenever I have funds. If I process grapes into juice I can choose when to drink it or serve it to friends. If I scatter seeds, some of them may grow and I have flowers in my future. The work of today is to take actions that create paths toward choices that I want.