So….here’s a disturbing chain of events:

• We buy a piece of land….with some buildings on it. The property has been vacant for a long time. The buildings are decrepit….the land is overgrown….the pond is full of vegetation.
• The land is what it is…it can stay that way for a while. My involvement won’t change much.
• I’m not getting over to work on the land like I think I should. It’s gnawing away at my spirit….it’s making me feel bad….making me feel lazy. I want to be an element of change. I want something wonderful “right away”.
• “Wonderful right away” isn’t reality. It takes a lot of hard work to make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear….I need to chip away at this monolith a little bit at a time.
• Dirt sits.
• This thing is what it is.
• I shouldn’t be troubled by not doing what no one’s done for whatever amount of time they weren’t doing it.
• Inactivity on the land is eating me up…no matter what I say to pacify myself.

I shouldn’t be troubled.

I like the sound of those words.

I guess I am troubled sometimes, though.

Not “troubled”….like certifiably troubled or anything like that….just a little bothered by the things I know I should do….but for some reason….laziness, fear, latent stupidity….don’t.

The trouble with land is that it’s a huge totem to procrastination.

It’s a marker.

I can’t get around it even if I’m walking over it.

Maybe that’s why I like burn piles….bonfires…big piles of crap going up in flames.

That’s a pretty dramatic display of some kind of forward momentum.

It’s a hot reminder that I’m accomplished something.

But when it’s gone….when the pile’s burned down to ashes….the memory of accomplishment goes up in smoke, too….and I have to start building the pile again.

Maybe I’m a pyromaniac?

That can’t be good.

That’s another thing….or this is another thing….what I’m thinking right now is “another thing” :

What was I thinking? Dang……

Oh…no….that wasn’t it….it was just seconds ago….ummmmmmm….

OH!! Now I remember….I was thinking that it sure is easy to get a plan together….a cohesive and vibrant plan….a mission statement.

That’s easy.

It’s easy….and it gives you comfort and the illusion of competence to be able to say, “Why, yes…after we tear this section down, we’ll begin by building the “Tower of Babel” over in the lower 3 (we don’t have enough land to say ‘the lower 40’),,,,and then over here, we’re going to put up the ‘Hall of Smoke and Mirrors’….then, when we’re finished with those two projects, we’re going to build a landing pad for the spaceship….and really kick this project into high gear.”

Maybe I just need to get back over to the property with a shovel and a box of matches?

Do “something”….even if it’s wrong?

Awwwww…..what the heck? It’s just dirt….

It can sit for a while if I tell it to.

It can sit for a while if I don’t say anything.

It can sit for a while if I do nothing.

Dirt sits.

“make the dirt stick” Chris Whitley