Kentucky is green again.
Our property is teeming with honeysuckle and blackberry blossoms. The last of the Spring rains having been dumping in fitful bursts one minute only to have the sun flirting through newborn leaves the next.
Thanks to a puppy brought home last year, I’m walking outside every day now. I hear bluejays, chickadees, killdeer, red-wingback birds and woodpeckers in a ceaseless cacophony. There’s yellow finch nest in one of our cedar trees and, always overhead, the silent black-feathered vultures riding the updrafts that spiral into the sky out of our valley.
We still only have one car so leaving the house isn’t happening enough for my mental health. I’m staying busy, but you can only do so much at home before home starts to feel like the one place you can’t relax anymore.
My babies are kids now. They use the bathroom (mostly) independently. They can make themselves snacks and clean up their messes. They cannot regulate their emotions yet. This is normal of course, but it doesn’t make it any less exhausting.
I am still needed a lot.
My favorite part of the day is when everyone is asleep and my bed finally welcomes me back at 11pm where I lay awake in the dark. The sacredness of stillness is something my body sometimes needs more than sleep.
I’m spending too much time at the social media buffet and my brain feels bloated. I feel like I don’t have an independent thought. My head is buzzy and irritated. And so I came here to this old, faithful blog.
I wish in my vanity I had some rich, pithy statement to wow the masses about the state of world. I would dearly love to stun readers of my work with how well I articulated some truth or revelation. I’m not proud of this, but I think admitting it to myself (and I suppose to you) is the best place to start extracting the poison of it from my creative work.
I post regularly on social media because I can usually get a gratifyingly quick response. A like, a comment, a view, a DM. It feels good to work on something, share it publicly and BAM! start receiving feedback—even a lack of feedback is somehow a motivator to try again tomorrow. The more I think about it, the more it feels like working a slot machine. Sometimes, you win. Sometimes you don’t. But what gets you addicted is the shallow thrill of trying, again and again and again.
I’m fighting that by sharing in this slow, quiet space. Not because I want to—I’m not there yet. But because I want to want to, if that make sense.
I plan writing every day over the next month. Some of it will land here. Some of it will land in your inbox (sign up here for that!) and some of it will land in hidden places where God only needs to see.
I’m also planning on exploring mini-vlogs via TikTok. I’ve posted a few there already and love the challenge of expressing my work in that format. I’m @breanne.rodgers there if you’re interested.
The past two years spun my head into knots and I’m aching to sit somewhere green with a blue sky overhead and talk real slow about how to undo some of them. This blog will have to do for now. Join me?
I said I would start this in June but I figured today was as good a day as any.