Outwardly, I feign sophisticated, picky interest, as the possibilities play in my head. Perhaps, I consider, this fresh lamb’s wool sweater will transport me from my current life to that of the adventurous Canadian isle fisherwoman from the catalog. I buy the lie of consumerism and, often, I buy the sweater too.
I’m watching low clouds pour over the sandstone peaks of the Colorado Front Range from the window of my rented cabin. The grey damp lends itself to a productive day of work at my laptop, letting me get lost in deep projects or skim across my email inbox like a hawk across the glassy surface
I wonder if modern kids subsist on the same diet of extreme excitement and crushing boredom that I did. The teetering balance of anticipation to actual happening was never more lopsided than on the first day of a new school year. Eager new outfits and first-day jitters landed with a chalk-dusted thud against a inevitable
The active ingredient in successful change is not grit or intention, but gentleness. I write this from a vantage of intellectual near-certainty, while under the surface my still-skeptical heart is fluttering in doubt. But hear me out. You’re going to fail. Accept this truth of being a person and suddenly every stumble becomes life-affirming. Failure