Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.

I think I am sensing a new uptake of motion in my life, as though something that has been dormant since before I was born is now nearly awakening. I finished Anne Lamott's book, and while mostly anecdotal and pretty repetitive, hits me in "my innermost parts," like schoolwork rarely does. I really think new priority has to be given to writing, which while unable to feed the poor or build houses, can feed Spirit to Spirit. I need to finish Hawk Hill. There are some gaps between the texts that I am too afraid to fill and knead, to stand back and let the yeasty floured mess rise. I'm afraid I won't like what I have to say. There's a certain labor that comes with compiling joy and loneliness and dread into language and then spacing it out correctly. I've always seen a poem as something already made and hovering in pieces somewhere, waiting for the lines to connect them all. I'm not patient enough to assemble all the parts correctly, like a thousand piece jigsaw. I always end up with a crooked nose, or an extra limb, or two heads. Actually, most of the time I just run out of things to say, my mind spiraling into the great big void at the center of itself that it fears most.

I am older now. I may be trying out a particular "career," but in the end I don't want to be in academia, and I don't want to live a pretty pastoral life occupied by surrounding myself with nice things. I'd like to "plant bulbs," with all of its literal and figurative meanings. Have a garden, feed my friends, tend to my family and those I do not know, maybe work in a free clinic. Anne Lamott is wise. She says to realize that the darkness is part of the hope, and that every moment of despair is a prayer. I wonder everyday if I am devoting my energy to the right place and to the right work. If I'm not, I have absolutely no time to spend on work that isn't mine. I know my flaw now. I think I am mostly hopeless and pretty faithless. I don't think I help people enough. I certainly don't give alms to the poor. Well, here I am, trying. Today I went to a Sacred Harp singing for the first time in six months. Next weekend I am going to the New England Convention. I think I will meet people, and ask them if I can help at their church, or in their garden. I'll finish Hawk Hill and send a copy to everyone I know. Maybe a part of it will mean something to them, too. I've got a lot of space to fill in that empty little book first, though.