Planting seeds and growing roots

May's Rabbit hole

Normally, my monthly Rabbit hole newsletter links the major things I’ve been studying (always available on my Readocracy), but this month was different. I was focused on:

• Prepping for NeoAcademia Season 2 (starts next week!)

• Reviving my startup JobsMight

• Reading Conjectures and Refutations on TikTok (and catching a suspension for bad paraphrasing, LOL)

• Wrapping another coaching/momming volleyball season/school year with tween daughter (not to be underestimated in terms of energy requirement)

I’ve been struggling for the past few days to figure out how to write about being less in my head and more out in the world. Ridiculous, I know... 

but then, today something happened that shook some sense into me:

I dropped my daughter off at the second-round volleyball tryouts at 7:56 a.m. and had planned to meet someone from Facebook Marketplace to pick up some elderberry trees at 9am before picking her up at 9:30. I thought it would only take a half hour, so I’d grab a coffee and write this newsletter for the month in the parking lot. I open my phone with zero clue what I’d write about and found a message from Elderberry lady:

I started my car ignoring the voice in my head telling me to be responsible. You need to write! You’re always late with the Rabbit Hole! If not, you have a million other things to do - and if you go early, you don’t have the excuse to leave and pick your daughter up. You know these Southern people will talk your ear off! 

When I arrived, I was met by a man who looked like a softer Daniel Day-Lewis perhaps in his 60s with a long white-sleeved sun shirt soaking up beads of sweat already dripping from the work he was doing in preparation for my visit.

“Good morning! Sorry for being so early” The sight of his impeccable yard brought a bounce to my voice that I hadn’t expected. He brushed off my apology.

“Mornin’! Here for the elderberry plants? Know what variety you’d like?”

“I’m woefully ignorant on the varieties.”  “Er, do you know much about elderberry? What are your plans for it?”