Sometimes it is easy for me to get caught up in what-calls-loudest-to-be-attended-to. Many times it is cooking or tidying up, mothering or homeschooling, but so often it is this darned computer. Does yours call to you as loudly as mine? As I reflect on the simplicity of my own existence the computer is one example of a complication I have welcomed into my world. While it often serves me - providing a way to run my business from home, a way to communicate efficiently with friends and customers and readers, and a way to quickly find information - often it distracts me and robs me of the simple presence in each moment.
It is hard to unplug.
But I've made a promise to myself. I am stepping back, just enough to reclaim what matters most. Presence in the moment - in my life. Yes, I will still check what needs checking each day, perhaps twice, but I will resist the temptation to check each time I pass through the office. I am keeping a notebook handy for things I want to look up - an old farm for sale on a country drive, a knitting technique, a question about a magazine article I am writing. And those tasks will be done all at once in the evening.
This is my challenge to myself: Live my best life. Focus on what matters.
And so today we are going outside. Because being with my kids, outside in springtime really matters. Today it is cloudy. And it might rain. But who cares. It is real and delicious and our world so we're headed to a favorite park out in the country to get outside and drink in this early spring. I'll even leave my phone behind.
At the park there is a creek splashing cold water on the banks, calling for water wheels and stick boats and muck boots to come. There are nettles peeking their deep green heads up from the leaves, calling for a careful harvest into a nourishing soup and to be dried for tea next season. There are hills to run down. Trees to hug. Trails to explore. There are ramps awakening on the hillside welcoming harvest as well, for pesto, soups, and sauteeing - the very taste of spring. And hidden in the woods is a creek choked with watercress, peppery and cold, easily pulled by the handful for spring soups.
Today we are going outside.
We will play.
We will picnic.
We will hike and forage and explore.
Today we are going outside to greet the awakening earth.
To be alive in this moment is far more enticing than a screen. The screen will wait. The kids - and the spring - will not.
