Losing Sight of the End for the Means

Weekly Prompt: What do we do all of this for anyway?

Over the Memorial Day weekend, I unplugged entirely from technology in order for us to finish building our chicken coop - no texts, no social media, no emails, no podcasts, no writing on the computer. No screens - period. It was lovely. But I have to admit, when I opened my phone this morning to see 168 emails and 16 text messages, I felt a bit overwhelmed. That is, until I started to sort through them and found only a handful required my attention. Maybe the world didn’t miss me as much as I had expected it would. Or maybe the world is more around me than on my phone. Maybe - just maybe.

As I stretched tirelessly overhead, painting the roofing support pieces - 80’s music blasting in my ears, sun blazing in my face and the tip of my left big toe no longer on my foot but instead wrapped around a metal clasp in a hole in the yard - I had a profound sense of gratitude. I wouldn’t choose to be anywhere but here right now.

Casey putting the roof on “La Dame Respite”