Two months whizzed by with the "Add New Post" tab open on my browser, but it was only today that I could sit still under my vine and fig tree, and who knows until when they'll stay green and giving?

Whether it's guilt or in good conscience, I couldn't say no to several social good opportunities the past few months and I'm now beginning to think I may have bitten off more than I can chew. But they're also watering this vine and fig tree, and in this pandemic and general mental chaos, that's as good an excuse as any to stay busy.

May saw us scrambling for COVID-adjacent vaccines amidst the slowness of LGU vaccine rollouts, and the whole family got PCV13 shots, including the kids. We had the old apartment cleaned and repainted. Josh and I painstakingly organized and reorganized the living room housing the bikes and bike parts and color-coded the Messenger tags by product and ad and sales funnel location (cut to now: we've allowed a bit of the mess to return). I restarted bokashi in earnest (and am still going strong, amazingly).

In June, Pat got married in an intimate ceremony with a lovely garden reception, and despite anxiety to the high heavens, no one went sick or got sick after, and the skies held the rain that day despite the week's downpours. It had been more than a year since we last dressed up for anything, and I wobbled in my heels and Josh perspired buckets, but there were high points: seeing people from the community face to face for the first time in months, watching Trese in the van with Josh to escape the scorching noon heat and humidity.

It was the month, too, of extreme impostor syndrome, wondering what I was doing clumsily trying to knit together behavioral change and narrative frameworks and agreeing to take another shot at taming the galloping content monster I abandoned in 2019 ago. I mean, sure, I've rested, I've gathered better tools to cope, I've just started to enjoy working and writing and watching k-dramas on easy days, but I must be a fool lighting up the other end of my candle again.

Whatever it is, restlessness or recklessness, at least I think I'm diving into this with less naivete than I did in 2011. I have a three-month trial timeframe with one project, and a three-year flexible commitment with the other. With our own family venture, I can put as much or as little into it as my other two projects will make room for.

I'm taking things one day at a time. My bullet journal is slightly more structured than it was at the start of the year, and I find I have to schedule things like a quick bike ride or yoga or breathing exercises (a life-changing tip I learned from Paul C. recently: use a metronome!) or dates/Amy time so I don't overwhelm myself. I have to clock off to eat and go to church. I try to listen with intent, otherwise I'll miss things like Amy starting to read chapter books (Narnia, can you believe it?) or Father Paolo's insights on readings I've taken for granted.

I recall a homily about how it was no accident that the bleeding woman's healing was sandwiched between Jairus coming to Jesus to plead for his sick daughter and Jesus raising his daughter who had died ("Talitha koum!"). Jairus needed to witness that transfer of power, be berated by onlookers not to bother Jesus anymore, and be assured by Jesus himself: "don't be afraid, only have faith." Having read this gospel a dozen or more times before, I was floored I had never read it this way before, that Jesus could afford to delay, to let death arrive before him. It is only to us that time is a matter of life and death. But to the one for whom death is reversible, what matters is the encounter of here and now.

May I be that present, that clear-minded, that untroubled. "Here I am, alive. This is what I can do at this moment, and that is enough for now."