paradox

i cannot  stay at the farm and maintain a smile.  i have planted each and every tree, watched them grow, touched and breathed with them, our energies mingled.  i can feel the fresh air that my trees breathe out, i just can.  and to see some of them broken, breaks me.

so i take my time off, i need to breathe, sometimes, i cannot take it all in.

i sit there sippin' alone and somehow, i feel you slide into the seat across from me at my fave coffee place.  i cannot hide from you, right away you noticed the tiredness in my eyes and say: you are in a tough season, many women would have given up, but not you.  

you ask:  how are you?
i forced a smile and managed: oh, i'm so blessed!  life is good!
you opened your hands across the table and touched mine: i mean, how are you, really?

tears came to the corners of my eyes: am ready to be done with all of this!  it is harder than i thought it would be.

so, which is true?  both.

it is funny that sometimes. i tend to think in terms of all or nothing. so i would always say life is good! when i am breaking apart inside. because i feel, to do otherwise, i would be discounting the other goodness that is in my life. but then, i get to realize this:  i live with both blessings and brokenness. challenges and victories, sorrow and joy.  (although the latter, with a capital J is fake.  bwahahaha!) so i have to change the last pair: sorrow and bliss!  now, that sounds more apt, at least for me. bwahahaha!  they are all mixed up together.

so today, i know this for sure:  in my life, i must embrace the paradox. and i bring everything to you and trust that when you ask me how i am, you truly want to know and it is okay to tell you.  all of it.  and life is good.  bwahahaha!

life is a balancing act

sometimes, i have trouble putting balance on things. hmmmm, make it a lot of times.  bwahahaha!  i am no good at doing one thing at a time. while i may catch myself busy on the treadle of my antique sewing machine, i would often catch myself picking the poppy am going to translate onto my canvass.  

while am going through the meandering paths in the forest at the farm, i also catch myself imagining jiko running until his tongue sticks out panting and making himself dirty and i giving him a run for his life before being able to give him a bath. bwahahaha!  

while i am meeting with my colleagues in the business department at the university, i also catch myself considering and raring to drive down to buhi and touch those handwoven colourful fabrics i asked the local weavers to especially weave for me, for my hobo bags and scarves.  and i can go on and on and on.

i have good intentions, but i typically end up doing most of it all at once because before i know it, there is also the time frame i have to work on - deadlines for one like me?  this definitely sounds strange.  bwahahaha! another thing am good at?  i wait too long for "me" time and when i get it, i hoard it like a starving dog worried i may never get it again.

perhaps it is because for the last six or seven years, it has been mostly about them - others.  the fault may have been from me getting that most outstanding rural woman award.  i seem to have taken it upon the self to stay outstanding!  at least to my mind's eyes.

now that i notice years creeping in on me, i got the scare of my life when i experienced cramps on both legs, i realize that i have to take extra effort to make a balance of what goes on in my life.  and i have consciously taken time for introverted activities like reading and musing and painting and sewing. again.  

do i need to be productive and clean the house from top of the fridge to bottom of the baseboards?  should i finish the simplicity patchwork which is not simple at all? write the farm training modules?  learn to tat?  save the world?

i always try to find that happy place between living restfully and being productive and recently, i reclaimed a small spot at the verandah.  i still have to bring up my rocking chair from the coffee shop downstairs to complete the look of the nook.  bwahahaha!

so today, in between tapping on my lappy and dipping my paintbrush, i made an appointment to have that swedish before i hit the sack.  i took sometime to really sit down and talk things about my relaunching of the b&b, but is that work? bwahahaha!  no, it is coffee time with a real-life friend.  

while it may sound so self-indulgent, those things and activities, they are also the very things that are so important and very rarely scheduled for the self.
sometimes, it is the little things, the daily things, the ordinary things that i need to notice and celebrate!  but this saturday, today, i am celebrating a different kind of gift:  permission to be indulgent.  bwahahaha!

and one more thing,  i allow myself to wear my pearls everyday. now, that is indulgent. bwahahaha!

deeper into joy

i let the wind through my hair. sometimes, though, the wind finds it difficult to go through my hair, when it is so bundled up. bwahahaha! so on rare occasions, i let my hair loose and allow the wind to caress those greys.

i go through every nook and cranny at the farm,  and discover something new, each time. seeds sprouting, berries blushing, bamboos shooting! 

it feels like everything is breathing with joy! exalting! exulting!

through all these, i learned to receive, for i know, all these are gifts. so, i walk and gather and just happily be, even for just a day, sometimes just a moment, i allow myself to listen and whisper a prayer, embrace the grace.

for this weekend, i allow myself to wander and may this wandering lead me deeper into the joy habit, because i know this for sure:  all is grace.

life is good!  and ilysm! bwahahaha!