The reaper’s story is the story
of endless work of
work careful and heavy but the
reaper cannot
separate them out there they
are in the story of his life
bright random useless
year after year
taken with the serious tons
weeds without value humorous
beautiful weeds.
— Mary Oliver, Morning Glories

The garden begins to fade, and really, who has the time to manage it all, what with so much going on these last few weeks of summer? Life washes over us, and we look up and the crab grass and clover and bittersweet have all gained a foothold once again. And the irritatingly cheerful morning glories, relentless in their persistence, rise seemingly out of nowhere to mock the overwhelmed gardener. We all suffer the same fate: Thinking we’re in control and finding out we were merely apprentices. The master was always time.

I write every morning, that’s my moment of glory. The payoff isn’t in views or likes or shares, it’s in doing what I promised myself I’d do day-after-day. I forget sometimes that people do read this blog, because I don’t want to think about people reading it while I’m writing it. That kind of thinking makes a mess of us. Flow happens when we forget what happens when we eventually click publish.

I write that knowing this all could have been anonymous, but ego had its way, and now the secret is out. Ego is its own master, if we let it be. But things like gardening and writing make a mockery of ego eventually. We learn we’re not all that important in the big scheme of things. We just do what we can with the time we have. That in itself is glorious.