Closing A Door

Here I am,

out standing in my field,

holding the latest issue of At Home On the North Shore magazine.

It's my final issue writing for At Home.

And that means -- the final Field Notes column. 

I can hardly believe I'm writing that, even though I've known since the summer that this column was likely coming to an end. And I don't mean moving to a different publication. 

Field Notes has come to the end of its natural life. Anything more and I'll be trying too hard, reaching for topics and ideas that simply aren't there, not the way they were. 

I began writing the Field Notes column bi-weekly in the Oxford Journal newspaper in 2011. When that closed, it moved to the Citizen-Record newspaper, and in 2017, the Field Notes column was picked up by At Home.

Not a bad run for a column in rural Nova Scotia.

It's hard to explain why I don't have anything more to write about; it's not as if all the interesting people have disappeared or I've told all the stories. Likely I can pin it on two reasons, which are kind of related: I'm getting out and about less, especially since last March, but more than that, it's that my work and writing interests have shifted. Teaching is becoming more of a priority, and a possibility, and I'm writing more about spiritual ideas. 

Also, I'm not doing anything new in my rural life; I haven't expanded it beyond the chicken coop or the river. We don't get out into the woods as much, we don't go biking or hiking. I've written about that -- rebalancing my inside/outside time. Actually, it's not that my rural life as changed, nor am I less contented with it; it's that the focus of my work is shifting.

The field is still my space for peace and quiet, for solace, for finding courage, for long conversations with myself as I work through problems, but those thoughts aren't necessarily about rural Nova Scotia, and finding my heart and home there. But perhaps a spiritual side of the field will give me a new direction. 

What I'm counting on is this belief: that in order to open a new door, you actually have to close one. You can't keep on foot on one threshold while trying to open a new door. You need to commit: Close the door on one way of living/working/dreaming -- and be patient as the new door reveals itself to you. 

The pandemic has changed so much, and many people lost jobs or dreams that really mattered to them. Everyone's lives have shifted in some way, some more dramatically and tragically than others. I realize I'm among the lucky who have been minimally affected; yet the pandemic altered my writing career. I just have to wait and see how. 

I keep returning to one of the quotes taped to the wall above my writing desk, one I've shared before but takes on new meaning during this time of pandemic: 

"It may be that when we no longer know what to do, we have come to our real work, and that when we no longer know which way to go, we have begun our real journey." 

~ Wendell Berry 

I feel curious about the future, and I'm nurturing -- enjoying! -- that feeling because it feels good. It feels right. 

Letting go is hard, but letting go has power to change your life.