When Plans "Gang Awry"

Nature's Autumn Calico

The best laid schemes o' mice an' men Gang aft a-gley

Robert Burns

To A Mouse

The plan

This morning I awoke to a cold drizzling rain.  Yesterday was a perfect day:  warm, abundant sunshine, gentle breeze, a few feathery clouds in a brilliant blue sky.  Of course, I spent yesterday inside:  cooking.  I was okay with it because I just knew I could play outside today.  I would finally till under the tabasco bed, then I would load leaves into a trailer and till them into next year's garden beds.  No Black Friday crowds for me; it would be a Tractor Friday.  Bliss.

I should have known.

From last year's "monsoons"

Instead of cheery gold, a soothing gray light is seeping past the curtains.  From the door, I can see water standing in the back yard, which means no tilling for at least a week.  The leaves are, no doubt, sodden and heavy--at least one sunny day before they're ready to move.  That's okay, too, because the ground will be too soft to drive on for several days.  I wonder if this is the beginning of the "monsoon season" when the sky is often as gray as the leafless trees, and the gluey buckshot earth sucks and gurgles.

I hope not; there's so much to do.  I have plans for the garden for next season, and I want to get started.  Then again, there's plenty to do inside, too.  The little library off the kitchen has become a junk room, and needs organizing.  My aunt's cookbook collection needs to be moved to the kitchen from upstairs.

Possibility

Then there's that pesky business plan I've been meaning to finish.  The Etsy shop desperately needs updating now that the fall craft fair season is over.  I have a stack of books to be read and reviewed.  I need to plan just how many raised beds I plan to construct next year.  The seed-starting shelf needs to be organized so I can start earlier next year.

STOP!  Just for a few minutes, in these precious first rays of dawn, stop, and listen.  Listen to the sounds of the house:  the air vents popping as the heater pushes air through them, the refrigerator cycling, the occasional splat of rain on the window.

Stop and enjoy this glorious, luxurious moment of silence and solitude.

Stop, and feel those empty places inside, drained by the whirlwind of activity, the effort of dealing with people, and the cacophony of the digital deluge.

Stop, and feel them filling, slowly, gently, from the wellspring of blessed solitude.

Not that I speak in respect of want: for I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content.

Philippians 4:11

So, while I may have thought that my plans had gone "agley," in truth, they've gone aright.  And for that I am truly thankful.

Nancy