Feeling good

So a friend of mine actually posted this recording of Nina Simone on her tumblr site, littlemissconceptions, yesterday, but I came across it, and it has been making me feel so playful all day that I just had to re-post it here. The video was posted to you tube by Tamara Connolly.

It is a clear sunny day here in northern California. Blossoms are starting press through the branches on trees, and I find myself standing and staring at them in disbelief. It is, after all, only February. I took a long walk both Saturday and Sunday, wearing a tank top, and felt overheated even so. It is definitely a far cry from PEI in February, that is for sure.

I am working away at a new little story about tea for a client on PEI, and revving up for a busy week. I will be spending an entire glorious day volunteering at Soil Born Farms on Thursday, helping with the gardening in the morning, and with a local youth group that comes out to farm in the afternoon. I cannot wait to get my hands back in the soil, and to be working with youth again. I will write a blog entry about my first day on the farm later this week.

I am also revving up for a slew of vaccinations for my upcoming trip to the Dominican Republic. I am not looking forward to dreading this. I have a great aversion to needles of any kind, and the idea of being jabbed over and over with large sharp-tipped objects is making me cringe. I can tell how excited I am about this trip though, because I was nowhere near this willing to get jabbed when I went to Costa Rica in 2000, and I really looked forward to that trip.

I have been talking to a lot of friends back in Canada lately via skype, and trying to figure out what I will be doing this spring and summer. A close friend of mine may be heading off to work in France for a year, and she has asked if I would like to come house sit. I have been missing PEI a lot this year, and part of me thinks that I would like it to be a permanent part of my life, even if I only spend part of my year there, so I am seriously considering her offer. I have realized that I seem to only be able to last a maximum of six months without seeing my friends back on PEI, so it would make sense to establish the island as a permanent part of my life. My friends and parents here in California on the other hand look at me with a *look* of sheer dismay when I talk about moving back to PEI...even when I introduce the idea by saying that I would "move back for a while," since the journey I took last winter and spring led me away from the island, and many of the reasons that I left are still very present in my mind and heart. Yes. I have a lot I am deliberating on at the moment.

Another thing I am thinking a lot about this week is my writing, and how to best continue developing it. I have not been doing much creative writing lately, and I am missing it. Missing how it infuses my life with excitement and enthusiasm in the same way that farming does. There are all these little balancing acts that need to be explored and mastered in life, and I feel as though having decided to dedicate my life to the two things that I am most passionate about -- farming and writing -- means that I am having to re-negotiate all the little pieces of my life so that they balance each other out, and fit together coherently. I am making progress, but I am also learning that building my own career is not an overnight affair. Every day I take small steps towards my goal, but I do sometimes get frustrated and contemplate giving up and finding a 9-5 job that would have immediate results (a.k.a. a sustainable salary). The reason I do not do it is because I know I would not last more than a month in such a job. I do not do well at things that my heart is not in 100 percent. I know I have a lot to contribute to the world as a writer, but I have to be courageous (and, it would seem, rather poor, at least to begin with) if I really want to pursue my dreams.

This has been a year of tests and questions, and detachment, and every day I learn new things and meet new people who teach me a new way of seeing the world that I would never have imagined had I not taken the wild journey I have over the last year. I do not feel settled, but I have noticed over the last week that I have started feeling content and happy with where I am at in my heart. I am working on loving the questions themselves. And taking frequent barefoot dancing breaks to tunes like the one at the beginning of this post, which makes me grin from ear to ear.