I’m sitting here on a humid June Saturday dashing off a quick letter as I sip my morning coffee. The air is thick and heavy, the temperature at that barely tolerable stage that threatens to become unbearable in an instant if it doesn’t get its way. The storm clouds are starting to form, but it’s all just a tease.
My studio is a giant greenhouse on days like these, hot with a chance of getting hotter. I start early. My work is coming in fast and furious. As the summer days get longer, my workload is matching their stride.
I’ve logged my third big commission for the summer, and summer hasn’t technically even started yet. I’m booking a full season ahead. I haven’t done that since before the pandemic, and in a good year at that. It was only two weeks ago that I was secretly jealous of a colleague who was booking into August. Not jealous jealous; they fully earned it. But, maybe a little.
I said it out loud. “I just want a little of that,” I told Alan. I thought it was a private conversation. But the Universe was listening. Within a week, my own calendar was filled through fall.
Make hay while the sun shines.
The old farmer’s saying pops into my head. The hay must be cut before the storm; it must be dried before it’s bundled. Damp hay is moldy hay, and an entire crop can spoil. Work that is almost finished doesn’t count, even if it took days or weeks or months of effort.
I feel my rhythm changing, the pulse of life beating faster. It isn’t just me – the plants are growing literally overnight. The shrub of oregano that flanks the walkway to our porch overgrew the path yesterday afternoon, in between lunch and my running back to the house to grab my glasses.
Everything is speeding up, swirling around me with a force I haven’t felt since before the pandemic. Was it like this last year? I can’t remember. Maybe I just wasn’t paying attention.
I’ll miss my morning writing time, the languishing moments when my thoughts could emerge at their own pace. I may not be able to write as often. It’s hay-making time, and I’m a farmer on a hot sunny day.
Change is difficult, even when it’s small change. Even when it’s the change we crave. It’s okay to miss the little things that must be set aside to make way for something bigger, the quiet mornings and the leisurely cups of coffee. The chilly days of winter that we’re nostalgic for now that they’re gone. We’ll come back to them in their season.
This season is for doing big things, growing big gardens, throwing big pots, and cutting big sheets of metal.
Because, hey – this is what we’ve been waiting for.
Leave a Reply