And a Time to Every Purpose Under Heaven

This time, like all times, is a very good one, if we but know what to do with it.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

I have a new exercise routine--sort of. For the past week and a half, I get up, put on my walking shorts, kiss my honey good-bye and head out for a 40 minute jaunt. That part isn't new. What is new is that when I return from my morning constitutional, I've been digging a hole. I am sick of the hole, yet I can't seem to bring the task to completion.

I've been stalled of late. (If you are a faithful reader, you will know that as my presence from this blog has been conspicuously non-existent). It's not a crisis; it's just annoying as hell. In almost all areas of my life, I am simply spinning my wheels. My checkbook...stalled. My healthy eating plan....mired. My exercise plan (other than the one above, which I will get back to in this entry, I promise.)...floundering. The plethora of projects for my business...ground to a halt. It's not for lack of effort. Everyday I attempt each task, yet my progress is slow--virtually nonexistent to my impatient soul.

Even my vegetable and herb garden is sluggish this year. This is partly due to operator error. I am a city girl at heart so the mechanics of growing and harvesting sometimes elude me. The other part is that I've been too busy slogging my way through the quagmire that is my life, so most days, all the poor things get are a 5-minute squirt with the hose and a promise to fertilize, prune and tenderly care for "tomorrow". I don't think they believe me; my tomato plants stubbornly refuse to yield anything more than marble-sized fruit and my basil is being flat-out rebellious.

In a magnanimous gesture of horticultural goodwill, I deemed it necessary to transplant my cucumber plant from its too-small pot into a spot in the ground. I know, I know....you're not supposed to plant cucumbers in a pot--they need room to spread. Okay, so chalk that up to this summer's lesson. So, I started to dig--thinking this was at most a 10-minute task. Wrong! With the third thrust of my shovel, I hit rock. I tried again....and again. Hoping for a buried treasure chest, I began to excavate an unsightly clump of concrete, which Jeremy promptly identified as an old footing for a fence post. So much for treasure. Having been informed by a reliable (?) source that the offending obstruction would be no more than 12-18 inches deep, I began to excavate. It's become a 10-day project (and counting). It's also become a metaphor for my life of late. Every day, I go out and dig around a little more, using a shovel, a trowel, my hands and lately a crow bar. My back and knees can only handle about 30 minutes of it at a time, so I end up digging down only an inch or two every day. It's probably at 12-14 inches. Still, it does not budge. It leers up at me, reminding me of the resolute Moorish castles I saw in Spain. They may partially crumble and lean precariously, but those babies aren't going anywhere anytime soon!

It has become my nemesis and my obsession. Like the other areas of my life, it taunts me as I chip away, chip away, chip away with seemingly no result other than a sore back and bloddied knuckles. Yet I know logically that if I persevere, the darn thing has to have a bottom somewhere. (Although, my emotional side is convinced that I will see a citizen of China pop his head through this hole before I ever get to the base of the concrete!) I realize that with my hole, as well as everything in life, it's what you do today that gives tomorrow's results (or maybe next month's or next year's). It's hard. Sometimes your hands get bloodied, your patience gets tested, your heart gets broken, and things just take too darn long. But that's how it goes. As the song goes, there is a time to sow and a time to reap. A time to plug away and a time to rejoice in success. You can't have one without the other.

And so we dig....

I'll keep you posted!