Wishes, Intentions, and Radishes
This is a wish: When you are writing about a radish, that you and the radish meet face to face. That you stay specific, present, and direct and through your true intention the radish becomes RADISH. You instantaneously summon the particular and also give life to the essence of that buried root plucked up red and edible...
Listen to wishes like you listen to the wind. You don't think: what is it saying? You let the wind howl. That's all. Autumn will come, the night turn blue, the harvest over. Radish will grow grainy and zinnia will freeze. Someday you, too, will be gone...Let your root and flower have an earnest intention and a light touch...
What wish do you have, that you hold and can also let go of?
--Natalie Goldberg, Old Friend from Far Away
More often than I'd like to admit, I feel a bit overwhelmed. I feel like I go weeks and weeks without writing something of worth. I haven't really read a full book in months. There are boxes to pack and this blog to maintain and a newsletter to send out and sometimes I find myself wishing I went to church? I don't know what church I want to go to or what I'm looking for there, but when I feel a little bit lost I often feel jealous of devout Catholics and Baptists and Mormons.
I imagine that moving to North Carolina and living in a two bedroom apartment will somehow change something about me--that I'll become much more organized, with my desk sitting in a room that isn't the living room or our bedroom. I will work out every day instead of say "I should really work out today." And I will cook more meals and clean the kitchen immediately after and we will have friends over for dinner and random afternoon visits with cups of coffee on the couch and expensive candles lit on a pretty tray next to a vase of fresh flowers from the market.
Rob and I hope to stay in one place for a while after this, but then I wonder--what will life be like without that reset every August or so, when we pack up our things and do something else? I tend to burrow into my life and get comfortable in a way that's almost lazy; but I'm hoping that this keeps me grounded in a way I haven't known before. That I find some roots and dig them deep, and finally throw away the boxes.