I’m reading an essay, The Art of Looking, by Christian McEwen, a section on the power of drawing, and the deep gazing that it requires, which can induce a meditative state.  There are instructions in the text:  to find something in nature —  a plant, a tree, a pebble —  and to watch it so long that it feels like it’s looking back at you.  Then begin to draw, letting the pencil trace the line of what the eye perceives.  I lift my eyes from the book and scan my surroundings.  The closest thing to nature I can find are the pebbles ground into Ula’s knee.

We’re in the emergency room, and rather than looking for those stones embedded in her leg, I let my eyes wander to the tiled ceiling and ponder the juxtaposition of this essay and this window-less place while we wait for the anesthetic to kick in.  Ula crashed her mountain bike after losing control on a steep hill.  After spending an hour with her in the bathroom trying to clean all the abrasions and cuts, Bob and I decided to let the pros help us out.  

No one schedules a visit to the emergency room for their Sunday afternoon.  And yet, between Ula and Bob, this is my third Sunday here in the past year.   I feel as though I should have a little punch card that would entitle me to a free cup of coffee while I wait.  I’ve brought my book, and I’ve brought my yellow legal pad, the home of all my lists, weekly schedules and plans.  Sundays are my time to figure out how the rest of the week will flow.  At home, I sit at my desk with my yellow pad and study all the events on my calendar, look at what’s coming up with the farm, review the menu for the cafe, and scrawl it all down at the top of the pad.  Then I calmly sort the mess out between the days of the week until everything has a logical home on the schedule, buffered by long walks, daily naps, time to write, time to read, time to cook supper.

I’d made my weekly plan already this morning.  Already it was too crowded.  Our house and business are pulled asunder with the backlog of projects that were either postponed or made necessary by the pandemic, then stalled for the winter:  Corey has decided to apply to go to college in the fall and needs help navigating the application process.  The siding on the front of our house, which was peeling and falling off, is getting replaced. The porch has been dismantled for sanding and painting. The farm store self-serve shed, which, prior to the pandemic, was just a storage building for our trash, the ghostly detritus of the prior owners, and a collection of forgotten furniture and beds from neighbors who “just needed a place to keep this for a short while,” is in the process of being cleaned out and converted to it’s higher purpose:  a place for our customers to have continuous access to our farm products.  

All these projects require meetings and work days; negotiation with the bitter wet weather and the demands of lambing season; the normal work schedule for the cafe; the start-of-the-month bookkeeping.

My eyes fall on Ula, beginning to doze in the hospital bed beside me, pragmatically pushing thoughts of nurses with tweezers and scrubbers and antiseptics out of her mind. My yellow pad glares up at me from my bag, snarling at me with forced chirpy self-importance that I should be feeling overwhelmed, that I should be taking rapid action to simplify, delegate and cancel until life once again appears balanced.  It’s time to take control.

But I just keep thinking about The Art of Looking, about how deeply rich it would be right now to gaze at anything from nature, to lose myself in it’s wild simplicity, to lose the pressure of this day, this week, this season, and simply follow the line of a leaf with charcoal on paper.

Two nurses push back the curtain.  They are loaded with beta-dine sponges, saline solutions, antibiotic ointment, a surgical kit, tape, and a mountain of bandages.  Ula remains stoic, but I feel her pull in my heart.  I may want to escape to a forested landscape, but this is where I am.  This is the nature that I face right now:  A kid, who took an adventure, which led to an even more adventurous outcome.  For this time in her life, this is nature.  I swallow my squeamish tendencies and lay my hands on her legs to gently massage them while the nurses get to work.    

There is nothing I can do with this week except surrender to it.  If I want to follow a line from nature, then this is the line I get to follow.  I cannot win at life this week.  I can only trace it’s happenings with my gaze — It starts with watching the nurse work with tweezers to extract the embedded pebbles in her knee, then moves to Ula’s hip.  Slowly I begin to help, and we roll her on her belly and begin working on her flanks and her elbows.  I listen as they teach me to use the beta-dine brushes, about scrubbing in a gentle circular motion, about the proper way to dress her wounds.  I follow the line of this life as it traces the route home for Sunday dinner, traces over each head around the table:  Bob, Ula, Saoirse, Corey, Mom and Dad.  It traces along the dogs’ ears, the cats raised tails as my hand runs down their backs.  I follow the line as I try to meet my appointments and tackle the to-do list.  Rather than fretting over the dropped pieces and forgotten bits, I just follow the line of my life, watching all the little pieces that, when gazed at up-close, look to be a frenetic mess…But when studied as a whole through the eyes of a nature-loving artist, is a life, a part of this world, worthy of examination, and beautiful to watch.

If you’re curious about the essay I was reading this week, it is The Art of Looking, from Christian McEwen’s book titled World Enough and Time from Bauhan Publishing, recommended to me by reader Andrea Stoeckel.  Thanks Andrea, I’m really enjoying it!

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

Folks, I’m thrilled to announce that my newest book, Redefining Rich: achieving true wealth with small business, side hustles and smart living, will be launching through BenBella Books this August. Toward that end, I’d like to enlist your help. We are looking to put together a launch team of volunteers who can help promote it. If you’re interested in joining, details are at the top of the blog page at sapbush.com but basically, you’ll 

• Pre-order a copy of the book
• Fill out our launch team form, which is found at the top of the sapbush.com blog;
• Promote the book through your social media channels
• Request the book at your local bookstore and library
• Leave a review wherever the book was purchased

But WAIT!  It gets better!  As an expression of my thanks, here’s what you will receive in return:

• A 15% discount code for anything in the online store at sapbushfarmstore.com, good through July 31, 2021
• A free digital chapter from the book in advance of the release date
• Entry into a giveaway for a signed copy of the book and a throw blanket from my store
• Official graphics for sharing on social media
• An invite to an exclusive virtual book club meeting so I can answer any questions you may have once you’ve received your copy. Note: Book club sessions will be limited to ten participants per session to ensure everyone has a chance to talk — we will keep adding on additional sessions until every launch team members who wants one can get it.  So, everyone get’s a chance to have an intimate hang (bring coffee or cockails, depdending on the time), and we’ll have a lot of fun together.  So please sign up – just go to sapbush.com, click on the blog, and the details are at the top.

This blog & podcast happens with the support of my patrons on Patreon.  And this week I’d like to send a shout out to my patrons Tali Richards and Suse Bell.

Thank you, folks!  I couldn’t do it without you!  If you’d like to help support my work, you can do so for as little as $1/month by hopping over to Patreon and looking up Shannon Hayes.