Taking my words

Just be.

Those were the words that were mumbled on murmuring lips when my thoughts raced and nothing seemed to make sense or everything was perfect and I wondered when it wouldn't be because it can't always be perfect like this right? That was 32 into 33.

Just be. Or as James said, we're all just beans just being. Because we all have minds that catapult thoughts from cortex to heart to fingertips, that send fragments of past and future reverberating through tense cellular walls. We all have perfect moments and then those moments when you can't even remember what perfect felt, tasted, shimmied like. We all wonder what 90 feels like but can never quite believe it will happen as we rush forward into our late 20s, early 30s, mid 30s. Because sometimes we all need to just float and see where life sends us.

But the words have shifted.

At the farm, Paul surveyed the sparsely onion-ed beds. "Replant." he said decisively. "It's better to take action and maybe be wrong than just to wait and wait and wait and not do anything." We pulled the failing onions, loosened the ground with digging forks, added compost, sprinkled organic fertilizer to nourish the ailing soil. We chose seeds and dropped them into furrows, covered them lightly, showered them in their new nests with water. We squatted on the dirt next to the bed and offered words of love and encouragement (yes, hippie dippie. but oh so effective). A month later a row of leafy chard smiles up from rich earth.

Take action:
My new mantra for this 35th year of life I'm striding into, pitchfork and To Do list in hand. Take action and surround yourself with people who take action. Care about something, get excited, get passionate, get ridiculous about it even. Take action and don't be afraid to take action again if things don't work out with the first decision. Be scared about something and decide to do it because that is what the little spot deep in your gut is radiating, imploring that heart that left brain to listen.

Be Atreyu, not Artax.

Take action. Move forward. Get happy.

And every once in a while on a sunny Sunday laying on the grass in the park watching the planes white against blue sky overhead or an early weekday when the sun shoots ripples of tangerine on the water and you're sipping tea and nibbling on butter cookies, just be. Because we're all just beans doing what we can.