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The story I told myself: 

You’re too old, not educated enough, too long in the same field/too specified, don’t have the certification & are too outdated on current cultural and social capital and best-practice thinking and analysis to

…land a new job.

…change careers.

…return to school.

…be self employed.

…negotiate a higher salary.

Overwhelmingly negative, right? Not even neutral– just the greatest hits playlist of my shortcomings.

HOW did I turn it around? 

I decided that I no longer wanted to be stuck in my own story of helplessness, barriers and dissatisfaction. The cincher? I have to choose this *every* day.

And THEN, take ACTION.

Something. Anything. Big. Small. Inward. Outward. Quiet. Loud. Short. Long. Related. Unrelated. Fun. Serious. Simple. Complex. Alone. With someone. Fast. Slow. Physical. Mental. Spiritual. New. Old. Comforting. Uncomfortable. 

SPOILER ALERT…you do not have to know the path in order to take the first step. Seems counterintuitive, I know. 

Action interrupts the old story. Action builds a new story. 

Pie Fixes Everything

“Pie fixes everything” is the tagline birthed by the original baker-owners of a well-loved pie bakery a few towns away from where I live. As a pie lover, I can confirm that in many ways, it does. And in just as many ways it cannot. This morning I transformed yesterday’s hour of picking strawberries into pie. Quite possibly, pie is baked into my dna. My grandmother would bake a pie five or six days a week year-round.  As I aged from observer to helper, I learned how to make crust. Cutting shortening into flour, adding ice water. Rolling, and sometimes patching. The seasonal progression of strawberry to raspberry to blackberry to peach to blueberry to apple to pumpkin.

Hungry farmers eat a lot of pie. My father, retired from commercial farming, could still eat a larger slice of pie at every meal, including breakfast, than most folks I know. As could my grandfather.

Summer in New England can be like a sprint between mud season and foliage. Sometimes it feels impossible to be present in the moment when all you can think about is hurrying on so as not to miss the next concert, lake, park, ice cream stand, hike, bbq or sunset. I’ve come to understand the passing of this exalted time in other ways: noticing the succession of trees and wildflowers in bloom, which berries are ripe, overnight temperatures hovering around 70, sporadic afternoon thunderstorms, heat lightning, insect hatches, the croaking noises emerging from ponds.

Where are you hurrying off to? Is it better than where you are right now? Can you make space to slow down and notice? When you pause, what do you smell, see, hear or taste?