Back at the ranch? Well, at first, we stare giddily at these newly available acres of land, giving over to our imaginations. For now, at least, mine shall lie fallow, resting quietly after all those years of Cover Girl, clutter and clothing.
In the midst of all of this disarray, what I also have discovered is what no one has had the decency to tell me--or perhaps I wasn't listening. Beyond selling off the kid crop, I'm also spending heaps of my time tinkering with a whole host of other challenges, from sputtering appliances to my own version of Creeping Charlie, not to mention the death and decline of people I really love.
Frankly this whole "circle of life" thing has outgrown its cuteness. . . . which is why, earlier this week, I reached for the soothing salve of Joni Mitchell. Long neglected on my music shelf, Joni still manages to pack a punch where I have needed it most. In my early-morning drives to work, she has become the warm compress I place upon the sorrow and exhaustion that have inexplicably pooled in my calves.
Slowly, Joni's lilting (and, as Mark would say, generally annoying) voice has jarred loose some of the difficult detritus that has built up within me, and, while she occasionally leaves me dewy-eyed, I am grateful for the relief.
I'm not sure how much longer I will let Joni accompany me to school. She is, after all, kind of a downer. But she's also a heck of a writer--something I'd forgotten over the years. And there is something to be said about the power of a minor chord.
For now, it makes sense that albums titled "The Hissing Lawns of Summer" and "For the Roses" fill these post-harvest days of mine while the sun anchors itself ever closer to the horizon, the morning shadows sleepily stretching across newly-harvested fields.
And me? My thoughts begin to turn to the ungerminated seeds that beckon a new planting season, a handful of fresh ideas anxious to break through.
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