Wednesday, May 21, 2008

Steak and "The Plan"

It was a beautiful, heavy-aired evening. The sky was still and leaves hung limp and crickets called to each other from behind thick grasses, too lazy to meet up and mingle.

Steak? he asked. How about steak tonight?

Perfect, I smiled. You grill meat and I'll boil vegetables and we'll sit our sluggish selves underneath the magnolia tree and call it a dinner.


So we did...


... along with a little brown dog, who had her first lesson in fire education/safety courtesy of one pretty, flicking flame.

Is there anything better than steak grilled outside? I'm sure there's nothing better than a quiet night of talking and laughing and thinking things through.

So here's the thing: the plan was... and always has been... to work my bottom to the bone until I'm 30. The day of my 30th birthday, I planned to effectually retire from all things corporate-related. I wanted to write. To bake. To welcome guests to a charming, sweet establishment and lavish them with food and music and flowers and rest. That was the plan. And I jumped the gun. I fell in love and got badly, badly burned. (Thanks for that, by the way. I'm sure you're reading.) I wandered a bit. I forgot the plan.

The plan... Hm. Here's what y'all weren't expecting: I've rented a cabin in Colorado. Around Durango. I'll be there for several months starting Monday, socking away money and taking Millie on canoe rides and writing my story. That was, after all, the plan. When I return the IRS will be paid, the land will be purchased, Freeman House will be financially do-able and henrybella's will have the strings-free funding she deserves. (Maybe I'll find a literary agent, too.) And hopefully I'll have the time and space necessary to nurse my heart back to health. Back to wholeness. That was the plan, after all. I need to stick with the plan.

See the decisions you can map out and the plan you can rectify over a homemade steak dinner? A steak dinner on a beautiful, heavy-aired evening? It's amazing how the divine and doubt... wounds and wishes... pain and plans collide on such evenings and present you with a solution.

I'll be sure to check in before we leave. We still have several days before we leave. Until then, my love. -Brin