Tuesday, July 24, 2007

Agricultural Education

It seems so much longer ago than May that I lamented not being able to get a skilled person in to turn our strangely unadorned staircase into a gentle bumpitty slide made of safety and pillows. And yet. Here we are a mere three monthsish later, and spindles now stand proudly alongside the formerly open staircase. The little one, a cruiser now, will soon find herself blocked by a gate, actually anchored to actual wood and wood by-products, which will open and shut smoothly to the mute request of an adult hand.

It's about pace, I think. Our lawn has been mowed these last few weeks, by a professional. Months ago it seemed as though it simply wouldn't ever happen again — that I might have to go out and buy a lawn mower (again) and do it (again) myself. Shudder. An engineer came a couple of weeks ago and recommended some simple fixes the town could undertake that might help our drainage problems. The dining room seems to have painted itself, against all odds. These things just...happened.

Humans plant seeds, and then we wait. But part of our brains — scientists call it the renuflexum diaptor — doesn't understand the concept of pacing. In this part of the brain, the seed is already corn on the cob and goddammit the renuflexum diaptor wants its corn NOWYOUHEARMENOW. But really, three months? Nothing. It's the interval between the T and the H in nothing.

Sometimes we don't even know we've planted the seed. We just have a vague want, a whiny wish, a momentary whim. And unconsciously, our will bends that way. We enact some tiny change here, make a single phone call there, do a Google search about that thing we wondered about that one time. We write a little list in our special Notebook of Ideas. "Someday/Maybe," David Allen calls this list. We often don't know anything is even growing, until one day our cabinets are painted, or we're in a farmhouse in France, or getting published in the LA Times, or having a kid, or scheduling a book signing, or reporting to a new job.

Check your soil. What are you watering?

bespindled




2 comments:

wcs said...

We may be in for a stretch of relatively dry weather. So... my grass may get cut, my wood may get stacked, and various and other things may just happen.

Oh, and I checked my soil. Weeds. Add to list : "Need better soil."

Anonymous said...

oh lord--we are nurturing so many seeds right now I don't know where to begin! But I adore the analogy, as it allows me not to think about projects we can't get our acts together to finish, but works in progress. Thanks for the paradigm shift :)