"Whatever you think you can do or believe you can do, begin it.
Action has magic, grace and power in it."
(Goethe, qtd by Dani Shapiro in Devotion, 236-237)

I have begun bgfay.com and have 49 subscribers. I've begun a writer's Twitter account and am getting the hang of providing a service to other writers. I have begun the difficult process of quitting my job before it debilitates me even further than it already has. I'm meeting with two friends to discuss a business idea that felt almost too foolish to say out loud but which, now that I've had the courage to say it, they think is an idea worth exploring.

Nothing is done. Nothing will be done. Not until death. Aiming for done is foolish, dangerous. I'm never done.

That bothers me more than I would like. By now I hoped to have accepted such things. Acceptance is another thing that is never done, damn it. I am always in the process of learning to accept. It all feels like failure but might instead be growth. Slow growth but growth nonetheless. Still, it feels like failing over and over every day of my life.

Having begun, I am finding new ideas. Hundreds of things come up for the blog. I keep finding things I to give on Twitter — not just post but give — because one thing leads to another. Talking about how difficult my job has become, how ill it is making me, has led to possibilities I didn't know before. I thought I was trapped. Beginning releases me. My friends and I have talked for an hour about the business idea. We will talk more and draw up plans.

Action begets actions. Beginning is progress.

I began the morning with slowly realizing my alarm was sounding for a second time. My first decision of the day was to turn it off. The second decision was more challenging: get up despite how tired and anxious I feel or stay in the warm comfort of doing nothing? I chose to get up and began doing it. I began the day.

Beginning, moving into action has left me touched by magic, grace, and power. What else can I do? What else might I begin?