Yesterday, juggling realities and schedules that are as inconsistent as the lives involved, I made it a point to get onto the land and do some spraying since we had some dry weather. The best time to spray weed killing concoctions is in the morning, but that was lost to two skipped schedules so I ended up doing it in the afternoon.

I stopped to say hi to one of my future neighbors. He told me that today was not a good day to work, that I should take the day off and rest. Rest. But I had accomplished nothing of great import last week, a victim of circumstance and - yes - schedules that I could not control and which no one else seemed interested in controlling. You waste half a day waiting on one person, half a day waiting on another, hours dealing with a drunken businessperson. Then you find yourself repeating yourself to people who, had they listened the first time instead of listening to themselves, would realize that there is nothing to talk about. The time goes in so many directions, leaving the soul seeking some accomplishment to feel the pulse of itself as it beats alone without time.

So it was important for me to accomplish something, be it something ever so simple as spraying some weedkiller to prepare for planting corn, or maintaining the trails by driving upon them, or simply being outside and thickening the callouses. And after I did my work, on the way back, my future neighbor stopped me and offered me a box of barbecue chicken, forcing me to stop and eat.

Eating. Yes, I did forget. And after I ate, as we sat looking at a pond and chatting, he told me that he thought 2009 would be when things turned up for me - he knows that I've been pushing in so many directions, and that I am spread so thin that at times my sanity seems to be as thinly spread. People close to me don't seem to see the candle wax dripping from both ends of me, that there is a wire line that is being balanced upon even as it slices through the wax in the middle. They are busy with their own lives, as they should be, and in the pie chart of life I am only a small slice. Because of that, I never hear that people believe in me or what I am doing. Like callouses, I have become used to it - but to hear a stranger tell me that they thought I would begin to reap what I have been working for these last months made me smile.

On one hand, it is always good to get a punch in the shoulder. On the other hand, it seems that I've been running a marathon of gauntlets as far back as I can remember looking for different aspects of success. Some fights are easier than others; some fights don't leave you a pulp of clay the next day.

There was a man - Paul Morphy - who was so good at chess that he could play multiple games at the same time while blindfolded - and win. But life is not like that. It is more like being blindfolded and playing very different games with each game's rules being made up as one goes along. Success. What does it mean? Does it mean winning a game, or does it instead me surviving the games?

I don't know. But I sure hope he's right. It would be nice to see something come back from all I am doing... but if that does happen, my success will likely be like my work. I only hope that it leaves me with less callous than heart... would that he would be right. But then, I have heard such words before and know the folly behind them. Success is not found by doing nothing, and success is as fleeting as that comfortable stretching of exercised muscle before the cramping begins.