Clear the decks

It's time.  I've known it for some time.

It's the season.  And for several weeks I kept saying, "I really need to clear the deck."  

Said it in so many ways.  With so many different words.  And always with such good intentions -- even longing, to do the one needed thing.  Or with wistful resignation.  Or, to be honest, also at times as quiet lament and complaint.

It really is true that the more we talk about doing something, the less likely we are actually to do it.  The mere talking about it somehow satisfies some little powerful part of our brain into feeling we have done something -- enough for now, about it.

But Monday I said only, "I'm going out to put the deck stuff away," and then went and did it.  And the only reason I had to say even that much was so Japhia would know where I was going and what I was doing.

And now it feels so good.  To have and to see and to walk into the space cleared, stripped down, simplified and prepared for the coming dark and cold.  

There will come a time again to pull all the stuff out and set it up anew.  See what still works.  Replace old with new where needed.

But for now it feels so right to have shed the extraneous, and to rediscover the bare bones of what really is and always will be no matter what.  The foundation of what will be again.

And I wonder what other decks might still be waiting to be cleared.