life lately

Today it is partly cloudy. The sky is super blue and the clouds are both a pure white and deep gray; they are so fluffy, I wonder if I were to reach up, I would touch soft cotton. Lush hues of green meet my eyes, the entire landscape locked in summer colors. Spring had truly come and gone. 

I am sitting at a desk, sipping warm black coffee from a handmade mug I found at a thrift store. 

I have a pile of homework off to my left that I am promptly ignoring for later. I am listening to several favorite songs from new albums from two different artists, Wolves at the Gate and True North. Both are stellar metal/rockcore bands. I am also currently reading two different books. One I am intrigued by, but not fully invested in: Winter's Orbit by Everina Maxwell. The other I am so excited about, I am reading it both fast and slowly. How does that make sense? I don't know. It's the last book in the Renegades trilogy by Marissa Meyer, Supernova. The Renegades books are so good, I haven't been that excited about a books series in a long time. Not since The Jasmine Throne by Tasha Suri (which I still need to finish that series) and Once Upon A Broken Heart by Stephanie Garber. 

Every once in awhile, I help out at this (very) small farm that has several farm animals I more or less enjoy taking care of. Especially the goats. This farm has at least over ten goats right now and I love them all (minus the male goats, they are brutes). Life on a small farm has been something I have spent the past few years trying to learn more about so I can one day have a small farm myself. Each year I come to this particular farm to work, I gain more valuable work experience. I see the harsh (horrible, let's just be honest) realities of what it means to have chickens (I will  n e v e r  have those terrible creatures), to have goats, to watch them die, to hear the horrors of coyotes attacking, of monster size raccoons eating the cats' food. I have bottle fed baby goats, practically willed one to live (and she did). I have watered the vegetable garden that is much more massive than my own hobbit garden. I have plucked a couple of blueberries from bushes, smelled the elderflowers in bloom, watched butterflies in the flower garden. 

Can you tell I love it? The simple life? That is also something I have tried to achieve for myself for nearly eight years now. The simple, sustainable, good-for-the-earth-and-creation life. 

I think, maybe, life is supposed to be that way. 

                                                Slow, 

                                                            calm, 

                                                                        peaceful. 

But, of course, life isn't that way. We haven't made it that way. Not with wars raging and innocent blood drenching the earth still. 

Is it a child's dream to wish for a better world? I don't think so. I think we as human beings have the capacity to seek a quiet, peaceful life. We all make choices, whether good, bad, or both. And lately, it seems human beings are choosing war over peace. 

I think we were made for so much more than that.