There are times on my journey that I have observed a situation and found it so comforting that I hoped that someday I too might incorporate it into my life. Today I recognized myself in one of those comforting situations. When I was coaching freestyle with the Pink Skyvan in the Czech republic. The Dropzone was located on an old Soviet airfield and right next to it was a small cluster of family farms. They put me up in a small cabin. It was one-room, bunk beds on one side and a small table on the other with an outhouse toilet just around the side of the building. It had a resident cat that lived in the attic where they stored dried grass for the winter. He would greet me at the end of each day and sleep with me for half the night. Each morning I would walk the short distance to the Drop-zone down a small dirt road past a few small cottages. At the end of the road was a small battered barn with two doors that swung out exposing the interior. One morning as I was passing the barn I came upon a very old gentleman standing just outside the door of the barn. He was smoking a cigarette and holding a scythe standing up on its handle. He appeared to be looking over a very small pasture of tall green grass that needed to be cut. The cigarette was the timepiece, the task at hand would not be started until the cigarette was finished. We traded nods as I passed by, my rig slung over my shoulder, heading to work. Later that day around the noon break as I wandered back down the road to my cabin for lunch I passed the same barn and noticed that half the field had been cut, leaving the long grass laying neatly in rows. The old gentleman was nowhere to be seen but it being lunchtime I figured he was doing as I was about to. After lunch on my way back to the airport I found him there once again, this time standing next to what he had already cut, scythe in one hand standing up on its handle, the curved blade angled away, another cigarette hanging from his lips. It appeared that in his mind he was planning how the rest of the job was going to proceed. That evening when the jumping had ended and the beer was starting to flow I was again on my way back to the cabin, down the dirt road, again passing the battered old barn, doors wide open. The entire pasture had been cut, the long blades of grass laying in orderly rows. Inside the barn the old gentleman sitting on a wooden bench under a single lightbulb hanging from the ceiling. He had the curved scythe blade laying across his lap, there was a cigarette balanced on the edge of the workbench beside him, a thin strand of smoke rising past the bulb. He was holding the blade with one hand and a sharpening stone in his other, running it in long strokes down the length of the blade. The work was not finished until the blade was sharp and scythe hung on the wall, the tool ready for the next time it was needed. The day started with him pondering the task at hand. Slowly and methodically, taking his time. His callused hands holding the handle of the scythe and like the artist he was would send the blade out in front of him, not too far, and then pull it back toward him cutting a swath of grass. Over and over, with the same precise rhythm he had had since his father taught him as a young boy.
He was in no hurry as this was the one task for the day. He was the artist creating a masterpiece, each row of fallen grass the same. When that task was finished there was the sharpening of the tools the artist used in his craft. I marveled at the simplicity of this man’s day. He was content doing the one task and he did it well.
I thought how nice it would be to live that way and not always be running from one project to the next, never finishing. But today I found myself incorporating that same simplicity in my life. Giving myself one task to do and doing it well, when it is done, I’ll sharpen my tools and be done for the day. There is always tomorrow to take on another project at least until there are tomorrows no more.