Fragments From Floyd

Baby steps. Baby steps. Eat the elephant one bite at a time. Take a deep breath and do the first thing.

This is the sense of what looms at the front of my mind this morning as I face an empty page and a full day, week, month and too-full season ahead.

It has started: the spin into what always becomes the most wonderful-frenzied part of my year. The blur of AprilMay is here--a single hurtling period of riotous overproduction, of too much color and the return of fragrance to warm air. The calendar looms with too many things in both the aesthetic and necessary realms that want and warrant my attention.

It will happen all at once and everywhere at once and I will not want to miss a single new appearance as spring returns life to the valley.

I want to be a passive but careful watcher of spring. AprilMay is here. Be patient. Listen and see. Let it unfold. Savor it.

And just then, the days of being here fill suddenly with responsibilities of living here: overhaul the tiller and the mowers; clean up the woodlot of winter's flotsam; order seeds, prepare the garden; finish outdoor projects halted by snows in February. Get busy! Stay busy, or you'll be overwhelmed and never catch up.

I've said yes to extra projects beyond the usual that come this time of year and realize I might have said yes when I should have said no.

An hour ago in my dreams, I was neck-deep in a warm, still pool. I could feel it around me, soft and green. I pushed away from my hold on the shore, my body floating silently, passively toward the dark depths where shafts of golden sunlight pierced the translucent emerald water. My eyes were open; I would not struggle, would not swim. The warm green would hold me up, and I would watch the underworld life below the surface of the tepid pond; only watch.

And I began to sink.