Inspiration for July

The Summer Day
​Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean-
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?
—Mary Oliver

One of my favorite poems and poets, Mary Oliver truly captures the feelings of laying in a field on a summer day, watching, observing, and considering existence as a whole. Between the lines you can hear the cicadas buzzing, catch the scent of hay coming off the fields, in the distance the shadows from the clouds dance over the hills. 

Maybe I worry too much about where I'm going, or if I'm not doing enough -or heading down the right path. We're on the verge of some big changes - or at least that's our plan. Planning for the unknown is tough - where will we go? what will we do? With Noah's recent graduation, the dream is to return to Summit County, work for the parks up there, buy a house, live the dream. My ideal career move would be along the lines of a field biologist with a focus on botany, where I can learn, work, and grow. But again, who knows what the future will bring, who knows where this new trail will lead, all I know is it's bound to be interesting and I'm bound to learn something. 
Happy July, friends.