My Restless Heart...

When I was in high school my mama told me I was a rebel.


And I just looked at her. Dumbfounded.

“Well you are,” she said “your stubborn, don’t listen to anybody and do things your own way. Well, I take that back, you listen but then you do what you want. You just have a mind of your own.”

This five minute conversation, long lost with the advent of my brother’s marriage and my graduation, has never been one I thought about a lot… until today.

Restless, that’s what I was as I meandered through the bookstore. What I really wanted to do was move, or dance, or ride or drive insanely fast—ANYTHING but walk around a bookstore.

I… was restless.

Or was I? Restlessness, I thought, produced renegades or cowboys or other such folks that stayed in trouble or chased the wind… I couldn’t really be restless.

As I walked around the store with thousands of titles staring back at me I realized that restless was the opposite of complacent, the antithesis of satisfied and most of the time the reverse of obedient.

I realized restless was what I wanted to be.

You see, restless people are never satisfied and they don’t conform easily… The Restless strive to experience things differently, to promote change, to do things that have never been done. Or at least things they would never dream of doing.

The Restless aren’t necessarily those riding bulls or jumping off the top of barns, but those who devote their lives to change.

Like the quiet writer who, even after his death, inspires readers to take the path less traveled

Or the passionate singers that took a country by storm and made people imagine a more peaceful tomorrow

Or the compassionate nun that in the pursuit of God and the blessing of service, left her home, family and the essentials of life to reach out to the destitute of Calcutta.

You see everyone is restless. We all have this aching in our soul to do something—to right wrongs, to charge valiantly into the fray, to defend our home and country… However most of us (including me) have been coddled and have lost our edge. We are like knives that, void of their sharpness, merely attack boxes and are disappointed when their contents fail to satisfy.

I discovered tonight that restlessness isn’t reckless. Restlessness is something that should spur us to action. It’s the joy of never having to quit, the pleasure of knowing that more can always be done if we are willing to move and the opportunity to achieve more and make a better tomorrow because we can.

Restlessness is miserable if you are afraid to make a move. I’ve been there and the lack of motivation will leave you wondering what you could have been and what you could have achieved. But a missed moment is not a prescription for failure; it’s an opportunity to get back up.

I chose this “blog title” as a play on words when compared to what I’m calling my collection of poems; words that I use to believe went hand-in-hand: restless and reckless. My poems, most unpublished thus far, truly describe who I am and how I see the world. They started out as a reckless attempt and turned into an expression of my restlessness; to share what I really am, to be who I really am in a world that may not care, to affect change through my words and to touch other searching for words to describe their pain and joy.

With this blog I hope not only to share my voyage into the literary world but also my life experiences and my love for agriculture.

I leave you with this, from Thoreau:

“If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.”

Happy Trails,