I Have Not Been Blogging…

It is fascinating to me how the inner landscape of a persons life can shift. In my case that means I have gone from being a person excited to write or blog about daily life to being someone who feels really private. I can’t quite explain it. It has been about a month or more since I got much published about ranching or our days just being us. I have felt busy and focused elsewhere, that is part of the equation, but I have also been resistant to sitting and writing.

I am doing a lot of wrestling and maybe thats why I can’t put a foot forward into the public forum.

Wrestling. A few areas of my life have called me to wrestle. As a blogger I am wrestling with a notion that to write about what we do as ranchers gives some feeling that we are unique or special when in fact we are doing what many we know do, and having experiences very similar to many others. What I have begun to come to peace with is that in fact and of course we are not much different from the others in this fraternity of ranchers we dwell among, but I like to write and I can get some stuff across. The writing I can do is something that I bring to the mix, others have other gifts that I don’t have, so maybe its okay to express myself and put a foot forward into the public forum with the thoughts and stories that are ours. I have received many messages of encouragement among these lines and that has helped me know its good that I write even if I struggle with feeling weird about it sometimes. Several years ago when I was rather deep into Facebook my Mom would express a bit of chagrin at how much I shared, she herself had a much more private approach to life, she simply couldn’t understand what motivated me. I find it interesting to have spent much of the last month feeling so similiar to what she expressed for herself. The reality of feeling private really did have the effect of bringing the blog to a halt because I don’t really have much material other than what arises from being human and being ranchers in this time.

I am glad to share that the last month has been very good for me. I have been enjoying summer. Unlike many places in the world we have had pretty normal summer weather, unlike many other places on the prairie we have had the right amount of rain. After last summer where tears fell readily in the face of devastating conditions, we breathe deeply at the sight of the bales in our fields. We have had mostly cool nights. I planted some flowers this year and they are currently blooming abundantly and are so pretty. The schedule has been different. We got a little down time before haying started. All this has conspired to have me feeling happier than I have in many summers. I usually struggle in July and August. All of the good stuff could change in an instant, I know that, from experience, but for today I am living in the moment and expressing a deep well of gratitude for the multitude of blessings that I know to be my truth.

Over the last couple of weeks I have taken pictures and been photographed in ways that I found thought provoking. This morning an older picture came to my attention creating this set.

I have always been fascinated by hands, by all they do in a day, the ways they can become intensely dirty, very soiled by life’s yuck, and then be renewed and ready for the next thing. I have sometimes wondered if I should write a speech about this, title it something like, “Don’t be Afraid to Get Dirty.” My hands have tackled some serious yuck and they have also been to the absolute opposite extreme. The hands pictured here are the same ones that have baptized babies, broken sacred communion bread and rubbed lotion into the skin of my elders. Sometimes I wonder how this vast difference can be my truth. It makes me think of a song we sing that starts with the words, “Create in me a clean heart O God, and renew a right spirit within me.” Its probably true that we should worry less about the dirt under our own and others fingernails, and offer those song lyrics as a prayer alot more. After I hit the publish button I am going to go put a load of laundry in. The last big job of the day for these hands of mine. My head and my heart need to ponder a little more what it means to have a clean heart. That is a speech I am nowhere ready to write tonight but I suspect it has to do with love. Sweet dreams.