Be willing to be a beginner every single morning.
Even now, when it’s been many years since this first Tuesday after Labour Day was a first day of school for me, this morning feels like one that is ushering in a fresh start.
And so it is.
I made a dent in the mountain of heirloom tomatoes that adorn my dining room table yesterday, by canning eleven jars of salsa. They’re resting, as we speak, on my kitchen counter. Beautiful jars of summertime that I’ll carry downstairs to be retrieved in wintertime—and beyond—I’ve got a respectable collection by now.
I’ve decided canning is finished for the time being. I’ve still got beets in the ground that I’m intending for jars, but there’s plenty of time for that later. I am going to try something different today—slow roasting heirloom tomatoes—and beyond that, the remaining tomato harvest is going from vine to freezer.
It’s time to set intentions and move on.
And so, I return to my manuscripts today. Yes, plural. In addition to the non-fiction SFD (shitty first draft) I completed and set aside before Camp G and G kicked off in July, I’m dusting off another—fiction—work I tucked away a few years ago. I’m far from completing an SFD on it, but it calls nonetheless. I’m going to blow off the cobwebs and see what’s there.
It is, technically, still summer but this morning feels like early fall, and fresh starts, and intention, and coffee and a little table in the back of the library. And words. Most of all, it feels like words.
What does it feel like to you?
Glad to hear you are dusting off that work of fiction!