Birds, rain, and the need to create

Let's be real honest...I suck at blogging. I just refuse to find the time to do it and most of the time I have talked myself out of certain thoughts I had when I was thinking about it. My desire is strong, but the follow through is lacking.

Sometimes I don't think I have anything to write and other times I just chicken out. Sometimes I am lazy and other times I am too stubborn to do it.

Today is Wednesday, February 27th, 2019 (But actually it is now May 29th, 2019) and I decided to go through my phone and find the password to this website and start typing. I wrote the two paragraphs above at two different times in 2017 and 2018. I decided to leave them there because they mattered at that time and I want to be honest to the Shane way back there...

I spent time that week, last February, with two different people talking about the idea of rest and taking care of your soul. Each time I spoke about these ideas, I thought about this blog and my own souls desire to sit and write. To post again. To create again.

The first time was with a daughter taking care of her mom and the daughter feeling burned out. We can go and go until we have nothing to give and become no use to the people around us. I sat and suggested to her that maybe she needed to stop every so often and not do things intentionally. Maybe that laundry doesn't have to be done right now. Maybe that email can wait until tomorrow. Maybe to-do lists aren’t that great all the time. These are all things we are great at talking about, but living is another story.

Then I met a woman who is dying who finds complete joy in sitting outside in front of a heater and watching birds eat from feeders spread across the yard. She literally goes outside at the start of everyday and watches birds. Does she know a lot about birds? No. Today she told me she just likes to watch them come and go. So we sat on the porch and watched birds. We talked about her family and other things, but mostly watched birds.

A lot has happened in the months since I had those two experiences. Some things were new, others were amazing, some confused me, and some made me cry. Honestly I haven't watched birds since that day with a hospice patient in her back yard...I have been too busy distracting myself with other things.

Then it started to rain today.

It was a hard rain. The kind of rain that makes you stay where you are until it relents. No fear I had Twitter. Then Pete entertained me with weather reports. Then of course more Twitter. Anything to keep my mind occupied.

Then I realized I was sitting on the edge of my bed staring out and watching it rain. I have no idea how long I sat there before I noticed, but it felt like forever. By then the rain had slowed and it was just steady, normal-ish rain...and I was just watching it fall.

And it was good.

I have no idea if I will ever be a consistent blogger. I know that I need to figure out how to watch it rain more or learn about birds or create something brand new. I also know that distracting myself with thousands of people, places, and things makes me weary.

But I'll start by just posting this and see what happens next...