on the worst days, I have to show up anyway

I had a full-blown crash out yesterday. At this chapter in life, it doesn’t take much.

My teething toddler just learned how to throw tantrums.

I burned the pancakes that I shouldn’t be eating anyway because what’s the point if there’s no protein?

My inbox is silent and it feels like my book on sub is a book on death row, waiting patiently in line to be scheduled for the gallows.

Gas is up, groceries are up, and I can’t find a job.

We’re gearing up for our big move this summer so we’re clearing out and cutting down, packaging and preparing. We signed a new lease for a house we haven’t seen, which we’ve done before and we did regret and we said we wouldn’t and that we wouldn’t forget—

but it’s too far to see it before we go. So we signed and we prayed that maybe we know

a little more than we did before

moving again with so little permanence in any one place.

All my life I’ve searched for that feeling—permanence—in the environments around me, and I’ve never been able to find it because I’m always on the move. But as my husband sat with me yesterday, offering his time and stillness to hear me out, I remembered that while my material life might soon be encased in cardboard boxes again there are permanent things within me that have never been shaken, permanent people beside me who have never left.

And then, dangerously, I start to think that maybe these seasons are still hopeful. That I’m not in a drought but a long, quiet period of growth.

Those long, long months between planting and harvesting are often skimmed past with the oversimplified instructions on the seed packet: water twice a week until the plant yields fruit.

But what it doesn’t say is that planting takes a day. Harvesting, a day or two. And all the rest of those months in between are for plants growing up, gardeners showing up, to tend the seeds we can sometimes only hope to reap.

Yesterday was a rainy day in my garden. I felt myself spiraling at the fear that I’m ripping my roots out for the hundredth time, starting over before I ever gave my plants the chance to show me what all my labor amounted to.

It was never my job to persuade them to grow, only to give them time.

My little boy always wants to be outside and the moment he finally gets me there I feel the warmth of sun that hasn’t been filtered through the windows and I think, clever boy, how did you know this was exactly what I needed?

And I realize that even when I’ve left my backyard soil bare for us to move away, there is a garden of things growing within me.

How desperately they need the sun. How desperately they need the days of rain, too.

This week I’ve been reminded that my job is not to force things to grow faster than they were meant to. My only job is to keep showing up in those months and months of waiting, to not give up.

So here I am showing up again, telling myself I have the grit to keep doing this because if I say it enough times I’ll believe it at some point, right? If I tell myself that my books are not destined for the gallows but resting in the garden, it makes it easier to care for them and see them as the refuge they’ve always been.

Here’s to our seasons of growing, our seasons of not knowing, and our relentless, immovable resolve to showing up even when the thunder rumbles overhead.

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I’m halfway through week 9 of my summer drafting challenge and while my word count might be a little behind, I’ve made some incredible progress in adding depth to my characters, setting, and plot. This novel is my first foray into writing dual POV and I don’t know if I can ever go back. Weaving two character perspectives together has been an incredible experience.

June has allowed me a predictable schedule again after several weeks of traveling, so I’m excited to see how the draft looks by the end of the month. Daring to hope I can surpass 30,000 words by July!

A quick, curated list of materials I’ve been studying to keep my writing brain sharp as I scrub the high chair for the 49,643rd time—

Fiction: Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke on audio, and my husband and I are rereading J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit chapter by

chapter to replace our late night screen time!

Nonfiction: bingeing various Substack articles on the publishing industry

Listening: My carefully-curated Scottish folk mix. I’m forever a rainy-day, misty mountain, muddy boots girl on the inside who’d rather be living in my great-great grandfather’s Scottish croft on the Orkney Islands.

Practicing: Scottish Gaelic. I’ve been decently consistent with Duolingo’s course, but it doesn’t have the grammar or structural commentary that I really prefer to have when learning a new language. Placing an order for this book today so I can develop language skills that last!

Exploring: How to get a job in this economy . . .

Thanks for reading my words On Paper & Light this week! Your support means the world. Drop your thoughts in the comments and I’ll pop by your inbox again soon.

Tìoraidh!

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