From SRP author Mark Posey:
Some years feel calm. Predictable. Ordered. And some years feel like somebody slapped the reins into your hands, pointed toward the horizon, and yelled, “Go.”
This appears to be one of those years.
Over the last few weeks, Tracy and I have been building raised garden beds in the backyard. Not one or two. Twenty of them. Mulch. Compost. Topsoil. Wheelbarrows. Shovels. Measuring. Levelling. Repeat until your lower back starts negotiating terms.
By the time this post goes live, we’ll probably be in the middle of moving mountains of compost before the next delivery truck arrives with topsoil. There’s a very specific kind of panic involved in realizing you have to empty one giant pile before the next giant pile shows up and blocks the driveway.
It’s exhausting. And oddly satisfying. There’s something deeply grounding about physical work when so much of my life happens in my head. Writing books, running Stories Rule Press, planning Kickstarters, trying to figure out the future of publishing — all of that is mental work. Necessary work. But abstract work.
A garden bed exists. You can point at it at the end of the day and say, “I built that.” The funny thing is, this whole year has started to feel like that. Not just the gardening. Everything.
Stories Rule Press is changing. We’re trying new things, rethinking old things, building toward a future that probably looks very different from the one we imagined even five years ago. There are books to write. Campaigns to plan. Websites to rebuild. Endless decisions to make.
And somewhere in the middle of all that, I turned sixty. That does something to a person. You start thinking less about speed and more about direction. Less about ambition for ambition’s sake and more about whether the work still means something to you. Whether you’re still building a life you actually want to live.
The strange thing is, despite how tired I’ve been lately, I think the answer is yes. I like building things. Stories. Businesses. Gardens. Futures. I like looking at an empty patch of ground and imagining what it could become if somebody cared enough to do the work.
Maybe that’s what this season of life is about for me. Not chasing. Not proving. Building. Steadily. Patiently. One load of compost at a time.
Some years are quieter than others. Some years are meant for rest. And some years? Some years are horse years.
–Mark.