I topped a little hill on our road going a bit too fast the other day and found myself speeding through a flock of turkeys. They were all over the road, and I don’t know how I kept from hitting one. I slammed on the brakes and turkeys scattered. Whew!

Then they were in our field. Must have been 30 or 40 of them. Maybe more. I spent a half-hour with a cup of tea watching these much maligned birds pecking in the grass, obviously doing what they do best.

So they don’t soar like eagles, who cares? Certainly not them. The birds I watched out my window were in their glory. How would it be to be so contented?

It is said that to be contented, you must know what you truly want. At first glance that sounds pretty easy to figure out. But once you begin putting your desires down on paper, it becomes clear that what’s on the surface isn’t what stirs your soul.

Money comes to mind first. When I dream of winning the Megabucks, for example, it is not actually the money I’m dreaming about, but the things the money will buy. First of all, the bills would get paid. Then a new car. The list goes on and on, all good things but not exactly what I truly want. Getting to the core of it is like peeling layers of an onion, but finally I get there. A tranquil life, happy and fulfilled children and grandchildren, good health – all things money can’t buy. So I didn’t need to win Megabucks after all. Maybe.

On the list: more time

Besides what I listed above, there is one more thing I want. Time. I want time to spend with my family. My husband and I are together all the time, of course, but we both have so much to do that we barely notice each other. If we won Megabucks, we wouldn’t have to work; then there would be time.

Time.

Hard to say what it is really – a construct of human thinking, obviously, because the rest of the natural world is not concerned about it. Still, it pursues me like a demon. I knew in early summer that in what would seem like just a few days, I would go to bed one night knowing that summer was over and the next day I would have to go back to work. And that’s exactly what happened. The good part of this is, the winter will fly by just as fast.

I guess I want more time the same way I want more money – so I can do what I truly want to do. And that brings me back to my original dilemma: What is it I truly want? As I said earlier, it is not an easy question to answer. But this summer I may have gotten close.

For one thing, I set a goal for myself to write a poem a day. I did that, and more. I don’t know what made me do it. I have never considered myself a poet; but somehow, this summer, poetry was the path to my soul.

Thinking in verse

I wrote so much poetry, I was thinking in verse. I filled almost two notebooks and have spent a lot of time rewriting and polishing. Maybe a real poet wouldn’t call it poetry, but it seems like poetry to me; and writing it brought me much pleasure.

The second thing I did that seemed as if it were on the path to contentment was to buy a new sewing machine. My old sewing machine didn’t come over with Noah on the arc, but it did come to Maine with me from the West. That was 1975. That old thing served me well. I made clothes for my family when they were little and everything else that can be sewn on a machine. Literally thousands of yards of fabric have been pushed under that panting little needle. But something happened, and I quit sewing. I think “time” had something to do with it. And probably the cranky old machine didn’t help matters. It wasn’t much fun to fix it every time I wanted to sew something.

My new machine hums like a Rolls Royce. And the fabrics today are nothing like the cotton percale (59 cents a yard) that I learned to sew with, nor even the fabric of five years ago. “Hand painted” is the thing now, and painting it myself is even more rewarding. Hard to describe the peace and contentment I feel when I’m surrounded by yards of beautifully colored cloth that is waiting to become something.

Now I think I’ve come to what really makes me contented. Creating. And it doesn’t seem to matter if it’s writing or painting or sewing or knitting. When I’m lost in that other space the right brain controls, I am truly contented.

As I finished this reverie, the turkeys had moved from the field and progressed to the apple trees, pecking at this year’s pitiful crop of apples. They know what makes them happy without even thinking about it. Probably most of us do, too.

Jeanette Baldridge is a writer and teacher who lives in West Paris. She may be reached by e-mail at [email protected].