#174. or, The Wedge

  The best way that I can describe it, is that it's like a wedge.

  The beginning of harvest is the wide side of the wedge. That's where I start, looking side to side, and there's all this potential, and vast array of jobs to do. But there's time and while there's always pressure, it's not an overwhelming pressure that threatens to crush you into the ground as you try to get everything done. Because the wedge is wide, and it offers you the flexibility to move from side to side and spread out you're duties where you best see fit.

  Moving along, one breakdown compounds into the next and as the sides of the wedge begin to narrow, certain jobs have to be set aside, as it becomes obvious there's not going to be enough time to get everything on that list completed.

  And as you drive yourself into the point of that wedge, with all the force you can muster, as things seem to fall apart around you, the motion of trying to achieve that goal becomes the only thing you can focus on. It's the only thing that matters. The thing that you set out to accomplish even before there was the hint of a wedge, because in the beginning, it was so wide you didn't even notice it was there.

  However, the jobs you cast aside don't just disappear, they're still there needing to be done, they've just slipped behind you, and you drag them along. Toward that point, that goal, and all that stuff behind you is now pushing you into the tip of that wedge, forcing you into a place, that while it was your objective all along, it's a position that's uncomfortable and heavy as the days left available to you become less and less. Everything is compounded. Little breakdowns are the end of the world because they keep you from your goal. Inconsequential things make you angry for no reason. And at night, you crawl into bed exhausted and dusty because you're too tired to wander through the shower, yet you can only sleep sporadically as thoughts of all those jobs you cast to the wayside come back to haunt your slumber when you try to shut off your brain for a handful of hours.

   I don't know if what I do is the insanity, and writing is the anchor, or writing is the insanity and what I do is the anchor? But I think, having a little insanity in my life is a good thing. Whatever it is, writing is one of the things that got put on hold while I raced to that wedge. I'm not apologizing for it, but I've missed it. My notebook, that had gotten crammed into a deep deep corner of my dusty backpack is ready to come out again and get filled with ideas, because  on Thursday night, I finished my harvest. Beyond the date I had set out for myself. Hell, I blew far far beyond that date. But I did finish, and while there's still plenty of things to be done, at least it feels like I've come out the other side of that wedge.

   Perhaps that wedge isn't really a wedge at all, but more of an hourglass, and over the next month or so, as I move away from that narrow point, and all the potential of the wide open view sinks in, I'll have the desire to do it all over again.

 .............because after all, there's always next year.