I'm hearing my calling

I've never heard a calling before. I have stumbled through life following whatever path opens up next. I was smart in school. I seemed to be pretty good at writing, so I pursued that. People told me I was good at it and I enjoyed the praise and as a result, I made it all the way to dropping out of a PhD in Creative Writing. I am grateful for all of those experiences and to have gotten to study a creative discipline that made me think about the world and my place in it. But if I'm really honest, my heart wasn't really in it. Not really. Not the very core of me. I loved the places I got to live and the people I got to spend time with and the life I got to lead (more or less) and writing was the currency I had to use to do all of that. When I started getting myself into locations I was no longer enjoying (Hey there, Kalamazoo), my willingness to keep up with the writing work dwindled. I've been wandering aimlessly ever since. Which when I think about it, that means I have been without direction for about 18 years. 18 years. I'm enormously lucky to have a husband and now a kid who give my life structure and purpose, but it's strange being aware that I don't much care deeply about what I'm doing with my life besides loving the people that are in it. But suddenly, I'm feeling this magnetic pull toward willows. Willows? I want to grow them and harvest them and dry them and make things out of them. Baskets, fedges, structures, bird feeders. And I want to do it responsibly with as low a carbon footprint as possible and with as much respect to biodiversity as I can. Have I ever woven a single thing out of willow? No. Have I ever even woven a basket of any kind? No. But I don't know how to describe this feeling I'm having, exactly. I love willows. I love the way the plants grow, their long delicate branches that disguise real toughness and usefulness. I love the care they take and the coppicing that produces those long slender branches from a trunk/stool that expands and grows more gnarly with time. I love the knocking sound of their branches when they're green and then the clack of them when they're fully dry. And the process is so slow. Once I plant willows this Spring, it will be 9 months (if I'm really really lucky) before I get a small harvest to play with. But then that harvest will have to dry for 3-6 months to be fully dry and useable. By which time, I will have to have built a system for wetting the willows--in a soaking bath or steaming or both. It will likely be 2+ years before I have a large enough harvest to make a series of baskets and really dig in to learning the art. But during that time, I will also be able to grow my willow collection exponentially. I'll start with 65 and my plan is to at least double the size of the willow bed each year. Y1: 50 Y2: 150 Y3: 450 Y4: 1350 Y5:4,050 By year 5, if the plants grow well, the willow plants should be producing about 20 rods a stool, for close to 81,000 rods. Wow. And by year 5, I might be good enough at weaving to offer classes in it at the farm. Or to install fedges for people in their own gardens. Or to give tours of my willow growing operation (which I hope involves some real bona fide permaculture techniques--including terracing and swales and ducks). I don't know. All I know is that I hear it. For the first time, at 46, I feel deeply interested and invested in a thing. And it feels exciting, but also really comforting.