the inspired writer

Clematis in my dad & stepmom's garden, Ohio, last weekend

When my mother offered to have our daughter stay with her in Ohio for 10 days, I said a hearty "yes."

(yeah, it's pretty great thing. Thanks, Mom!)

I had visions of these uber-productive days, getting a bunch of stuff done — business, book and home stuff. But once home, I found myself a bit giddy with the freedom of life sans child.

(I love my girl and miss her, but it is wonderful to be off mom-time for a bit.)

I've gone clothes shopping and shoe shopping. I ate dinner at 8 o' clock. I got a pedicure and an eyebrow wax. My man and I have gone out to eat twice (twice, I say). We went to a movie and took a drive around some of the local lakes in his convertible. I sat on my living room couch and noticed how quiet the house was. I watched the turkeys with the first bunch of turkey chicks come to the feeder. I walked around the garden and noticed the flowers and picked strawberries.

In short, I've been soaking it all in.

(Brief pause to recommend the movie we saw, The Brothers Bloom — quirky and fresh with a cool theme around scripting the story of your life.)

The "soaking-it-all-in" part, of course, has been very, very good. What wasn't so good was the guilty whispers that crept up and chided me for not being more productive. "You should be working while Grace is with Grammy," they sneered.

But I pointed out to these snivel-ly voices that I was getting things done, thank you very much. And I sent these voices out into the garden to look at the plants.

Look, I said, look at these plants. They can't be flowering all the time. There has to be time to soak in the sun and the rain. To rest and rejuvenate. To put down deeper roots. To breathe.

For me, I can lose sight of the importance of soaking it all in. Especially when I'm also out to bloom big in my life. I get so focused that I just want to bloom, bloom, bloom. Which is a great desire.

But I need to remember that part of blooming is being in the process of blooming, which means that you can't be blooming all the time.

No flower can. Not you. Not me. Not even a prolific bloomer, like Ms. Spirea. All bloom means brittle stalks and shallow roots. All bloom means flowers that are anemic and lackluster.

Full blooming means dancing between being in bloom and not being in bloom.

{poignant pause…not-so-ironic lesson coming…}

It's interesting to note that I have crossed more off my "to do" list this week than I have a in a while.

Sure, some of my "productivity" is due to the fact that the mommy part of my brain and energy is freed up for other things and that I chose to let some regular routines like blogging and tweeting and emailing slide.

But I believe that my spike in productivity is mostly because I've allowed more space for soaking it in than I've had in a while.

More fun, more play, more soaking it all in minus stress, struggle, "working" = more done.

Lesson duly noted.

Tell me, what "soaking it in" activities nourish you and fill you up?

*************

Flowering Fridays is a weekly look at flowers through the lens of what they might teach us about flowering fully in our life. Past editions are here.