Summer                                                          Under the Lily Moon

“When it’s time to die, go ahead and die, and when it’s time to live, live. Don’t sort-of-maybe live, but live like you’re going all out, like you’re not afraid.”

Sue Monk Kidd, The Secret Life of Bees

With Paul and Sarah on the road, this quote jumped out at me. (oh, toby, too) I so want to live on the very edge of my life, risking it all, trying to be the best me that I can be.

It probably doesn’t look like it from a moving to the wilds of the Maine coast position, but for me learning Latin and keeping bees put me out there, in a place no longer familiar, on lands foreign and challenging.

If I’m honest, and why wouldn’t I be, the big challenge for me is getting my work out there into the world.  It terrifies me and excites me, just not in equal measure.  The terror easily swamps the excitement.

Those of us with quiet treks, ancientrails walked alone or in private, can fall prey to adventure envy when the adventure has a physical component.  Climbing.  Skiing. Moving. I’m acquainted with this envy and envy is bad for the soul.  It diminishes the envier and the envied with a false comparison, a comparison between different journeys, neither more nor less profound or difficult.  Just different.

Traveling fills that adventure component for me, but I like returning to the familiar.  In fact, for me to walk my own ancientrail, I need a quiet home, peace during the day and a place to work.  With Kate I’ve found all these things.  A blessing in my life.

Now there’s that submitting my writing.  That’s an adventure.