“To Do” and “Done”

I have a complex relationship between routine and spontaneity. I am a full-fledged daughter of a concrete/sequential, ever-practical German immigrant mother and a military father who wrote poetry, listened to classical music, and willingly jumped into any new creative project, much to my mother‘s constant consternation. 

As a result of living a childhood floating between these polar opposite world views, I now live my life in the tension between two distinct lists. The first is a “to-do” list, which I make every morning, with little boxes in the margin that I can check off at day’s end and feel a sense of accomplishment. The boxes mostly remain unchecked. The second is a “done” list. At the end of the day, I write down all of the things that I actually did, and I put nice little boxes in the margin, and then I check them all off with a deep sense of satisfaction.

When you put the two lists side-by-side, they bear no resemblance to one another, which begs the question:

Why even bother?

But I do bother - every day. There is something so clean and perfect about a “to do” list that has not a single thing checked off of it, and there is something very satisfying about a completed “done” list that says things like: 

• went for a walk around the lake and blazed trails

• thought about life’s big questions

• organized a random, messy drawer and found some “lost things”

• took a video of a young squirrel learning to walk on flimsy branches

• watched the dog have deep thoughts while staring at the river

I don’t have a driving passion like some people do that sends them out the door in the morning. But if I look at my done list, these are the passions I’m starting to notice. 

• I love to think.

• I love words.

• and I love the way that the Earth speaks when I walk on it. 

I sometimes wonder: Is this enough? Shouldn’t I be saving the world somewhere? Shouldn’t I be eating locusts and wearing a horsehair shirt, yelling warnings on street corners?  And, more importantly, shouldn’t I be checking off that list of important things “to do” every day? 

Not surprisingly, the first thing on my “to do” list today was to clean the kitchen. But I made the mistake of looking at Google maps on my way to walk the dog and saw that there was a lake nearby that I had never seen before. I got to the place of decision on Main Street and turned left instead of right, taking “the road less traveled by,” and it truly did make all the difference.

When I returned home, the dishes still awaited placement in an empty dishwasher, but my head was filled with the images of my unplanned adventure. A lily pad filled lake embraced the entire field of my vision. The wind danced through the trees and along the shore as hopeful fishermen cast their lines into the rippled lake. A field of yellow flower tips competed with the rusted lines of a fence.

Now it is the end of the day. The house is still a mess. But I have put “writing down random thoughts” on my “done” list for today.

And for today, that will have to be enough.

Into the deep

The Nooksack River, once nearly overflowing its banks and carrying uprooted logs like sticks in its Spring current, has settled down. Our retriever Zuni, a desert transplant, initially approached this river with much trepidation. She started out by just dipping her toes into the water and then she went paw deep and now she will go all the way up until the water touches her belly. Along the way, she learned to “fetch” as we threw small sticks into the water near her.

In these summer days, all the sticks and debris deposited in high water have been turned into fetch toys and ended up downstream somewhere.  Because the river bank is empty, we bought a bright, floating fetch toy to encourage her splashing in the shallows.  But today at a new spot in the river, I accidentally threw the fetch toy too far . She ran out to the edge of her comfort zone, began to take the next step, and then realized it was a drop off.

What to do?

We watched as she contemplated her next step. Should she simply watch her bright orange fetch toy slowly float down the river or rescue it from an uncertain future?  She inched forward. She inched back.  She wiggled. She stretched her neck out. And then suddenly she made the decision to just dive on in.  We marveled as she grabbed the fetch toy, confidently paddled through the deeper water

toward shore,  and dropped it at our feet.  I expected her to be hesitant, but she danced back out into the water craving a repeat experience.  As I watched her dive into the unknown again, I realized she  had learned a valuable lesson:

What she wanted was far more valuable than her fear. It was worth the risk.

And it got me thinking. Isn’t that what we do as human beings as well? I don’t know about you, but for most of my life, I have been wandering around in the shallows of my life - pulling back whenever my feet would leave the comfort of that secure shore. I can’t tell you how many metaphorical fetch toys I have let pass down the river and stood paralyzed by my own fear of trying to extend my boundaries.

Zuni was able to leave the safety of the shore and take a risk only because the desires of her heart were stronger than her fear. And that begs the question for me, and possibly for you as well, what is the true desire for which I would be willing to risk everything?

Honestly, a crowd of  loud voices drowns out the call of the river within me. Some linger from childhood.  Some try to steal the remembrance of my heart’s call.  And some, planted as tiny seeds along the way, have now grown to a tangle of branches through which it is hard to even find a pathway to the shore.

But I did know the way once. When I was young.

I could feel the call in my bones with a force so powerful I thought it would consume me. The tiniest moments of beauty would cause me to weep inconsolably, and I ached to crawl into the very landscape and be cradled by it. A symphony would play, and I would get swallowed up in the sound, my raw skin caressed and soothed by the notes.

Over the years, those voices had convinced me that being in the current is meant for braver souls.  But perhaps it is time to trap those voices in a jar like angry bees, and let them buzz incomprehensibly around me as I move forward anyway.

Perhaps it is it is time to leave the safety of the shallows and surrender to the call of the current that carries the desires of my heart.

And perhaps it is time to embrace the words of Flannery O’Connor that the artist prays by creating , and simply spend what is left of my days in ceaseless prayer.

Then, and only then, will I never be content to remain on shore again.

Chasing after the wind

In the fields of Hovander Park near our home, the grasses have become thick and tall. Now, yellowing in the dog days of summer, their stems are more flexible, and they catch even the slightest breeze moving through their thin stalks, creating waves of gold rippling through the green cattails and random weeds that invade their territory.

Walking through those fields in the early morning, alone and with no distraction save the beauty around me, the words of King Solomon in Ecclesiastes weave through my thoughts these days.

Everything is chasing after the wind.

This last year of transitions has kept me from posting new blogs in Epiloguer.  It wasn’t that I was no longer having epiphanies.  But in the uncertainty of where we would live, and how we would heal, and what our path would be, sitting down and writing my way through those epiphanies seemed daunting. At least that’s what I told myself.  My excuse list expanded over time, crowding out any impetus to “write my way to truth.”

Now, however, in my daily walks through these fields, I have been asking all of the tough questions that I think many of us do as we journey through our “third act. "What do we gain from our toil? Why do the oppressors flourish? Why do fools have their way? And I think for people who are creatives, the other question that chews at the corner of our hearts is:

Does any of this matter?

I look for wisdom in the words of Solomon, who reflects that God has set eternity in our hearts, something we will never fathom this side of heaven.  The things that gave us meaning in the past- our work, raising families, our endeavors - decrease in importance as the years pass us by.  And in the spaces left behind, that yearning for eternity, always below the surface of life, begins to seep out.

At least it has for me.

That yearning is not for the end of this life, though.  It is a recognition that nothing here - no experience, no relationship, no earthly beauty will ever approach what is to come. My soul knows that.  And in the absence of an ordered life with externally placed structures and demands, I have only the exposed territory of my heart, hungering to experience the “known and not yet known.”

And so, what to do?

I suppose today is as good a day as any to start anew here, following Solomon's sage advice as I consider the work undone in my own life. Solomon had it all, and I have a little, and yet we share a common future.

So, I do not need to consider the troubled days of my life, for God will keep me occupied and focused on the joys of my heart.

I will find enjoyment in my labors for I have been gifted the ability and the power to rejoice in them.

And I will remember that the tranquility of God dwells within me,

and that if I rest in that place of peace,

a foretaste of the eternity to come is within my grasp.