The Magical Bottomless Barrel

Just a few more hours to work before I pick up the girls and we begin our summer holiday together. I'm tying up some loose ends on the second print project I've done this month (remember those good things coming this fall?) and eating my oatmeal.

I've been thinking about the way we perceive time and what gets done. Caren says that the downside of being wired to see future possibilities all the time is that it's like the carrot dangling out there that you can never catch. Even if you accomplish or make the thing you see, by the time you do you'll be able to see what's next after that and feel the gap between there and where you are.

I'm making peace with the fact that I can always forecast out about 12-18 months in my mind. Learning how to sit with seeing what's to come even when it isn't yet time to be in action or execute anything, to let future possibilities shimmer a little, like tantalizing daydreams, instead of bearing down on me as if the Universe is tapping her loud foot in the background. I'm practicing acknowledgement for all that's been done behind me--ripping that carrot off, sitting on the stoop and eating that sucker, savoring every crunchy bite.

It's like I finally figured out that it's not just a carrot on the end of that line, it's a magical bottomless barrel of them.

It's a paradigm shift to realize that enough-ness lives in the realm of declaration. That we could declare at any time that there's plenty of time in the world--really we have nothing but time as long as we are alive. That everything that really matters to us gets done. That what has been done already is not only enough, but is often worthy of celebration, satisfaction and pride.

Here's to summer, to long stretches of time. To the things that really matter getting done, and no more. Here's to it all being beautifully, perfectly enough.