Monthly Musing – October 2021 – The important things : : : : : : : : : : : : : Blogtober 2021 : Day 30

“Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”

Isn’t that a lovely line, and so very thought-provoking?  I was introduced to this poem (“The Summer Day” by Mary Oliver) this month and this line has stayed in my head.  I think it’s been particularly pertinent because I’ve been writing blog posts every day and whilst I do always try to look for the extraordinary in the everyday, I have found myself taking even more notice of what’s been going on around me.  We really do only have “one wild and precious life” and to consider it so has reminded me of the value of what we’ve been given.

It’s been fascinating to discover that adding in an extra hour or so’s blogging every day (it really does take that long to write a post, sometimes longer!) has actually resulted in me slowing everything down rather than speeding it up.  I’ve taken more notice of what has been going on during the day, knowing that I was going to write about it later, and that very act of noticing has reigned in the speeding hours more than anything else I’ve tried to do.

Another thing that I learned this month is that we can always make time for what’s most important to us, and writing my blog, talking to you and having conversations through the comments, is a hugely important part of my life.  There has always been time in the day to sit down at my laptop and see the words flow onto the page, and yet before the Blogtober month started, I wondered how I was going to fit it all in.

I have enjoyed this month so much, where everything has felt simpler and I’ve really been able to make time for what’s important: my knitting, my blog, my garden and of course my family.  Somehow, everything else has fitted in around that, like some kind of jigsaw magic where the pieces adjust to become the right shape.  This is what I want to do with my wild and precious life, and I am so very lucky that I am able to do that.

Time is something that intrigues me (you’ve probably noticed that from the number of Monthly Musings about that very subject!); there are books of all kinds from technical to business to spiritual self-help on harnessing and shaping it; you can use planners and calendars, computer tools and pen and paper; we count down the hours with watches and clocks and yet still, the minutes tick by every 60 seconds but some minutes feel longer than others and others whizz by in the blink of any eye.

I’m sure that it’s just as I’m getting older that I am so much more conscious of the passing of time, but what an incredible thing it is to be able to regiment it into calendar hours and for it to be still flexible enough to dream and to shape and reshape as our days pass.  You may well get tired of my fascination with time before I do! 🙂

“Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”