As I am sitting out on my balcony enjoying a fine Dominican Republic cigar at the end of a 96 degree July day, seeing the mountain ranges to the West, and thinking about what a great month this has been, I remembered the July flies from my youth in rural Georgia. They are better known perhaps as annual cicadas which emerge in late July or early August.
I came around to thinking about those boyhood sounds and insects because I will be heading back to Georgia in a week and will be hearing them again. But that prompted me to reflect on how this month has flown by - July flies indeed. This is significant at the moment, in this cycle of life, as I have had one of the most productive months of the last 15 months, - because of deaths, weddings and the challenges of those life events.
Writing blogs is a great way for me to measure how productive I have been, because it requires time and space and the right mindset in order to write. And I have written more blogs this month, than at any point in the last three years. While they may not have been the best blogs I have written, they have certainly flew off the digital page so to speak. With my return to the States and living in the situation with my dad, this will come to a close.
That is not bad, it just is one of the realities of sharing my dad’s twilight years with him. No full attention to my thoughts and no deep work is possible, and again I state, that is not bad, because I know that I can still produce my best stuff given the right setting and opportunities. Something I was no longer positive was true after all the holes were torn into the fabric of our family these past 15 months. (I in fact wrote quite a few more than I published).
Writing blogs requires two things: the margin in which to order one’s thoughts, and the important work and experiences each day to make putting those events down in writing significant. Both are more complicated than that, yet that simple at the same time.
So yes . . . July flies . . . and has flown.
