You know how we run our lives expecting that all will be well when we get all our ducks in a row or something. We plan endlessly expecting a perfect life. Save against that – insure against this. We roll along thinking I will get over this hump and solve this problem and sort this situation out and then it will be better. Better forever. I will be THERE. And then it isn’t better and we are nowhere and we are endlessly shocked. Like a mouse in a maze we keep racing along looking for the magic door that will lead us to a perfect life.
I think we have it back to front, inside out, upside down. 
There is no perfect life. There is not even a perfect day. Unless we realise that a Perfect life is FULL of bumps and jiggles. This is what life is. It is meant to be this way. Fat days and bad hair days. Running for trains or missing planes. Lost bookings and reluctant plumbers. Not enough straw or mould in the hay. Fences slowly falling and missing chicks. Money troubles and killing frosts and children gone off the rails and dogs dying and illness in the cattle and not one truck that runs and coughing cats and tires deflating. Pot holes in the track and air full of bean dust. I think THIS IS the norm. This is the way it is. This is an ordinary day. No need to complain about this day.
I think I need to wake up and work faster and say to each problem – Yes, Excellent, thank you. How can I fix this – then I/we spin to another corner and say again Yes, Excellent, thank you – what is the problem! I can do this. Then do it again. And again. Just Shut Up and Deal with it. There is no perfect. This is how our lives are. Fast, furious and sometimes life threatening. Heart breaking. Good. This is the way it is meant to be. These are the normal days. Good mean pushy days.Spit in your eye days. Days that challenge and stretch us. Days that deserve a drink at dusk.
A perfectly calm day without troubles is most unusual and should be celebrated! A perfectly calm day with no-one coughing and no-one dying and no mean decisions and no ice or snow and no bendy tree winds – These are unusually wonderful and should be celebrated.
Like yesterday. Charlotte the book illustrator in Milan liked the new words in the childrens book. I created an address book of 86 people who want to write for the next Fellowship book – Letters For my Baby Girl. (if you did not get your letter let me know) The big pigs and the little pigs wandered about the fields eating grass. The calves and sheep wandered about the other fields eating grass. There were no skunk hits or mink sightings. The chickens laid 11 eggs. I collected four buckets of pears and did not burn the dinner. It rained but only a little and it was not too cold. I visited the Old Codger, chatted with The Matriarch (who had kindly done all my laundry) and collected bags of vegetables for the pigs from the local store. The kittens got fatter, all the chicks were still in the loft and Poppy did not escape. It was a good day.
My good calm day was special and I knew it. Unusual. Worthy of celebration.
I hope you have one of these good calm days today. Just don’t be afraid of the crappy days. They are perfectly normal. Just say: Excellent – Good Now I know what the problem is – I will find the solution. Taking control of the problem is power. Don’t give it away. Push – all the time. Be the best You can Be. Always. And remember everyones best is different. Then embrace and relax into those gentle calm days. And charge your batteries.
Love your friend on the farmy,
celi
The Kitchen's Garden 
106 responses to “A moments respite”
Ah thank you! I needed reminded to pull on my big girl panties and just get things done. Good or bad the days still come and the chores still need done. So right you are, there are some really great days and some really crappy days when you have kids and animals, but they are all normal. Just roll with it.
Good days are good. My day is starting out nicely…I plan on it staying that way! 🙂
Linda
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You make my day!!!!
Sorry about my vertical comment above for Kate. I do hope it is possible to read it. I am inclined to agree with you Celi, life is a bumpy road full of twists and turns. They are there for a purpose: to keep us on our toes and stop us suffering boredom!
Thank you.
I so needed this today miss c – thank you from the bottom of my heart x
i read you daily and am always touched, but today i needed your words – wisdom – thank you
Wonderful philosophy for life – and better than philosophy, it’s real and practical. Thank you!
Such wisdom! I do hope it will be the opening chapter for the new book! It is so terribly easy to feel as though each of those bumps in life is just one more stone to weigh you down in the river of life. It is so much wiser to catch the stone and throw it back in the river—trudge on and not get too much water in your waders. 🙂
My eighty-eight year old mother always says, “There are no bad days. Some days are better than others, but there are no completely bad days.”
Since I read M. Scott Peck’s words “Life is difficult” it released me, and so it continues with your words today. Sense of wellbeing comes from coping with what is, rather than yearning for what might be. The daily benchmark for the G.O. and I is when we can report to the other…. “no news is good news”. Good news is a bonus. Bad news, well, in the big scheme of things is rarely truly bad… more like unfortunate. And you deal with it and move on.
The calm tone of your words and the light in the photos suggests the enduring and continuing nature of our lives, they wax and wane and so it goes.
A beautiful post. And the outpouring of ever-skinnier-printed responses to Kate’s today is a perfectly potent reminder that The Fellowship is a mighty crew that always mobilizes with generous, deep spirit when any of us ducks *do* face a tough time. What you have built around you is absolutely gorgeous, Celi. I am with all of the rest here in saying that, though I’d never yet ‘met’ Kate, she will be very much in my heart and my thoughts as she navigates what’s ahead. This community you’ve built is an astounding powerhouse of goodness, and I thank you for it. *All* of you who happen to come by here. Like the farmy itself, we’re proof that what Celi plants, grows and flourishes!
❤
Kathryn
Minute by minute, hour by hour, day by day . . . . Kate and all of us will have to and do live by that axiom . . . . there is a horrible sounding and crude Anglo-Saxon saying by which I have learned to manage my life : ‘It’s not over till the fat lady sings’ . . . .
I am the Fat Lady!!.. no singing!.. c
DarlingHeart – we are all agreed!! Love you all!! And definitely no singing . . .
And wouldn’t it be incredibly boring if every day went according to plan? No serendipitous (I LOVE that word!) discoveries, no finding new strengths to cope? We would all grow fat and complacent and boring. This morning I discovered a nasty gash on one horse’s face, cleaned it and Bactined it and told her: foolish girl, now you’ll have a scar. For Kate I’m calling in the big guns, I know several what I call ‘power pray-ers’. They are fierce! Upon my saying ‘I know someone who…’, they will jump in immediately and put you at the top of their prayer chain.
Oh darling Kate we seem to have had quite a conversation in the vertical! For what it is worth: I have had 5 posts this morning methinks from people you do not know you or Celi simply saying ‘thank you’ . . . . nought else – it has not been necessary . . . .hope you can have some shuteye tonight . .