Overgrown

July is when everything out here is in danger of getting overgrown by the oat grass, the virginia creeper, the fox tail, the nutgrass, the poison ivy, the walnut saplings that the squirrels planted last year, the ironweed, the johnson grass, the ragweed, the goldenrod, the wild grape vines, the blackberries - so many blackberries...

In short, there is an abundance of growth and with that comes the very real danger of a structures being entirely overwhelmed. They can be pulled down by the weight of the vines, or pulled apart by things growing through the cracks in the walls, or knocked right over by trees growing next to the foundation.

I do this to myself. All. The. Time. Country life is a metaphor for the rest of my life.

I love an abundance of information. I love learning new things, reading new books, mulling over new ideas, trying new strategies. I want all of the information - right now. I want all of the options - right now. I want to save all of the ideas - right now.

Pretty soon, my head is bursting with options; I worry that I won't pick the 'right one', I feel anxious that I'm 'behind' in what I'm studying, frustrated that I don't understand it all, irritated with the number of notebooks full of Very Important Notes and piles of books that I've saved from studying all the things and afraid to get rid of them because what if that's the notebook with The Answer that I've been looking for.

So much abundance and so much overwhelm.

I need some mental mowing. Weed eating. Pruning. Maybe a judiciously wielded chain saw. Something to keep balance between the growth and the structure [me].

Quite honestly, I have no idea - at all - how to do that. It's one of those boundary things I'm not so good at.

I'll be thinking about it for the next while to see if I can come up with a strategy to encourage abundance while limiting overwhelm. Maybe that will help me restore some Fun to my life.

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Thursday, August 1, 2019

Overgrown