Alchemy Woods

Saturday morning I awoke to an email from WordPress. I rubbed my eyes and stabbed my phone with clunky, uncaffeinated fingers. “Congratulations!” it said. “Your blog is officially three weeks old.” I promptly groaned and deleted the message without reading any further. Because every word that followed was going to prick maliciously at my Gen X Americanism philosophy that I should be doing something productive EVERY MINUTE OF THE DAMN DAY! And this blog has been sitting here for two weeks with only the intro words Eli wrote for me when he set it up (let’s all thank Eli).

The truth is, I am crazy productive and still feel bad for not being obscenely productive. I’ve started a new business (a horticulture service company…in spring), two new blogs, been working in my own garden, and trying to re-establish social contacts and flex long atrophied social skill muscles after living like Sméagol for two years, cradling my health like a golden ring while muttering “my precious.” Hell, Saturday I managed to run some shit over to CHARM, clean the house, suffer the unmasked hoards at Publix, deal with traffic (so the former was all done with assistance from Eli. Let’s all thank Eli), make a decent supper, and head to Oakland Cemetery for a night time art show. But I feel like I should still be doing more.

And as I write this, I’m texting a friend who is coming out of his own drama to “be forgiving to yourself.”

I’m pretty certain most of us feel this way. One of the many lessons I’ve come away from the COVID Pandemic is that I don’t have all the time I think I do. Now is the time.

Now is the time to start.

I have to keep reminding myself that it is the time to start so I don’t get too caught up in the finish part of the equation. Because a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step…or a blog post.

And after that long, rambling intro…

Welcome to the Alchemy Woods Community Blog!

My goal with this blog is to give everyone a space to engage by providing and creating blog topics that we can all discuss. Discussions are key to creating community, but we’ve had little opportunity to do so since the start of the pandemic.

Topics will vary from specific intentional community interests (styles of governance, housing, demographics, etc) to general topics on subjects relevant to geography, interests, and the identity of Alchemy Woods Intentional Community. The occasional prose, quote, or pic collage will also find its way to the blog.

We have a few guest writers who are planning on submitting work (several published…aren’t we all fancy) and I encourage anyone who wants to write to contact me so we can set that up. Editorial or narrative works are all welcome.

In order to comment, you don’t need a WordPress account. Just be sure to sign your comment. Comments will be monitored by a small group of members.