Unfolding

It occurs to me that a blog is quite a bit like a romantic relationship. It starts out all fresh and new and oh! so! exciting! You have so much to say to each other. You miss each other (or your comment notifications and site stats) when you’re apart.

Over time you calm down. You settle into a comfortable routine. You’re talking (writing) less and less.

This blog was easy to write in the early days of the farm. There was so much going on. New ventures, new animals. So many things to learn, so many problems to solve, so many (many!) mistakes made.

And now… it doesn’t seem like there’s much to say. Really, this is a good thing. It means that things are quietly humming along without the earlier drama and angst.

But I wonder if it also means I need to look closer, dig deeper, pay better attention.

I’m sorry if this blog has become boring. It’s not that I haven’t been writing, it’s just that I haven’t been writing here. Today I was looking for a poem I’d written last year, trying to remember which of my random notebooks I’d scribbled it in. In the process I came across a piece about the farm that I don’t even remember writing. I sense that I was unhappy with it, cast it aside and evidently forgot about it. Almost a year later, I kind of like it. Not because it’s a great piece of writing, but because it recorded a day where I did look closer and pay attention. I’ll share it with you soon.

I’m a little sad that I won’t have newborn calves to take pictures of and write about this year. I’m sure it will make Matt happy to hear me admit that, as much as I liked to complain about his cows. But this year there are no mama cows, a story that I apparently neglected to share here (but I think did mention on the Facebook page.) So I will catch you up on that one soon, too.

My “word” for 2011 is cultivate. My idea was that each month of 2011 I would choose a different focus for my word, and of course my left brain had 12 different topics of focus planned out for the entire year. For example my focus for January was “cultivate routines to allow for spontanaeity.” But since then I’ve found that it’s been better to let the focus for each month come to me organically, and I’m feeling like the focus for April just might be my right brain saying “screw you” to my left brain and have something to do with writing & art & poetry & photography & creativity.

We shall see how that unfolds. “Unfolding” seems a fitting metaphor as we head into spring. The tree buds unfold into leaves, shoots unfold into flowers. I feel like that’s where I’m at as well, unfolding back into my creativity, my own spring, after a year or two of just laying low. Stay tuned…