It has been many moons since my last blog post. 377 days, to be precise in the solar rather than lunar sense. While it would be tempting perhaps to categorize this draught of writing under the guise of simply drifting so thoroughly into the business world that I no longer feel the need to touch base with my English-major self, this isn’t the case. Rather it has been a season this past year of inward looking: tending a two year old, managing a husband traveling out of state 4 days a week, expecting a second baby, and working full time. Sherlock Holmes once explained that he is very careful about the knowledge he collects, because our brain is an “attic” into which only a finite amount of information will fit.
“I consider that a man's brain
originally is like a little empty attic, and you have to stock it with such
furniture as you choose. A fool takes in all the lumber of every sort that he
comes across, so that the knowledge which might be useful to him gets crowded
out, or at best is jumbled up with a lot of other things, so that he has a
difficulty in laying his hands upon it. Now the skillful workman is very
careful indeed as to what he takes into his brain-attic. He will have nothing
but the tools which may help him in doing his work, but of these he has a large
assortment, and all in the most perfect order. It is a mistake to think that
that little room has elastic walls and can distend to any extent. Depend upon
it there comes a time when for every addition of knowledge you forget something
that you knew before. It is of the highest importance, therefore, not to have
useless facts elbowing out the useful ones.” (A Study in Scarlet, Arthur Conan Doyle)
Emotional space works the same way – there comes a point
where we are at full capacity, emotionally and mentally. During these times, we
must be intentional to focus on what is meaningful. The receiver of our focus
can and does change; what Solomon recognized millennia ago, that “for
everything there is a season, and a time for every matter in heaven….a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together;
a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
a time to seek, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away” (Ecclesiastes 3:1,5-6). The last year has been a season of small
children survival; now with a husband living locally again and 2 kids doing at
least some degree of sleeping, I am re-emerging tendrils of focus into the
space of written thought and silent reflection. It is a new season. I look forward
to embracing it, and invite you along for the ride.
