Aside from popping in to share a book review, I took a holiday break from social media after Thanksgiving last year. I have never been able to post the three to four times a day that the algorithm is reputed to prefer, but still, I fully intended to come back to my attempted handful of posts a week in January and then I just . . . didn’t. Since 2018, when I signed the contract for EE: A Life, I’ve been working flat-out on social media, research, writing, editing, and book promotion—on top of parenting, household management, and all the varied, unexpected things life does throw at each of us. I’m tired.
I have been opening my apps every so often. I have even been reading some articles. (As a side-note: If you only read one essay this year, let it be Paul J. Pastor’s essay on tending your bean patch. Truly.) But when asked to cope with current events, my brain just . . . doesn’t. So instead, I’ve been reading books. We’re keeping a family reading list on the wall outside the kitchen again this year, and I see that I’ve read twenty-two books so far this calendar year. Biography, ancient history, gardening, parenting, fifty-year-old literary criticism, poetry, fiction. I bought a paper crossword puzzle book and I’ve been filling in puzzles in the evenings while listening to a space-cowboy audiobook with my husband. I’m working my way through a tiny little Lenten devotional. I’ve even sent some snail-mail letters to friends. It’s been nice.
In between bursts of spring hail and historic Pacific Northwest tornado warnings (which I’m thankful to report were downgraded at the last moment due to an unexpected and very welcome inflow of cool, wet ocean air), I’ve also been working in the garden. I’ve planted three fruit trees, four evergreen huckleberries, two thimbleberries, and a handful of vegetables I think I’ll be able to manage watering through the summer. I made Steve Solomon’s organic compost recipe. I’ve done a lot of weeding. We tore out the rotting barn floor, evicted some unwanted residents from beneath it, and put in a new floor made of pallets from the free pile behind the feed store. We’ve checked off some tasks in the house, too. It feels good to look around and see order in places where there has long been nothing but work undone.
Writing-wise, I spoke at the beginning of March at Samford University’s Distinguished Author Series on how Elisabeth Elliot’s biography complicates the long-time public understanding of her life, and how that complication can both challenge and encourage us as we live our own lives. I’ve been nibbling away at revisions for a new edition of my British Christian Authors Lightning Lit & Comp textbook. I’m also squeezing in little bits of planning here and there for research work.
Truly, all of the above is writing-related because I don’t have anything to put on paper if I don’t fill my reservoirs. I expect to continue this slightly higher ratio of feeding the roots to creating publishable work for awhile. I hope that, whatever it is that drains you dry these days, you too are able to nourish yourself one way and another.
I wish I could watch your gardening in action. I’ve been wanting to learn. I don’t have a very good plot of dirt to work with right now but my sister has had some success with tubs.