My name is Laura Spead and I live in the St. Petersburg, FL area with my husband, two daughters, and one son. I love Mary Oliver’s poem, The Summer Day. I know so many who do. I love the imagery of it and I love the beautiful questions it asks about how we choose to spend our time. I started Life At Full Spead when my firstborn was so tiny and changing every day. I wanted to have a record for my beautiful baby girl and our family, so the memories we all share can be captured somewhere, before they slip away. I figured this little corner of the Internet was as good a place as any. And now that we have added more babies to the picture, and have encountered more adventures, it still calls me.

In a tiny note of irony, my goal for Life At Full Spead is to freeze frame those beautiful moments that may otherwise get overlooked in the very busy lives we all lead—the moments we spend exploring, enjoying, creating, sharing, and laughing, before we stroll along to the next opportunity. Because having these moments, and then savoring them…that is exactly what I hope to do with my one wild and precious life.

The Summer Day, by Mary Oliver

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean-
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?