a snip of zinnias
a straggle of petunias
a cheer of sunflowers
a wonder of days
a sweat of nights
a hum of fans
a goosebump of air conditioning
a drip of cones
a slurp of popsicles
a sizzle of cookouts
an aura of fireflies
a glee of children
a boom of thunderstorms
an anticipation of farmers
a plethora of zucchini
a nest of tomatoes
a clutch of green beans
a delight of peaches
a fantasy of corn on the cob
a harvest of gratitude
At the top of a morning, I notice the energy of possibility. Hope, wide awake and willing, greets the day face-forward. Counting on roadside petals, life loves me and I love it right back. How fairy-taled the deep green velvet of a moss-covered path. How gladly sunlight dances with daisies and trumpets daylilies. How fun to chick-a-dee-dee-dee with chickadees and honk with geese flying over the lake. How gently the fog lifts as the day warms. How delicate a thread of web stretches from flower to flower to flower, a tell-tale trail of one spider’s travels. I marvel at the intricacy of a gravel road, two miles into my day. And returning, notice now how I feel right this very minute, tip-tapping on keys. Happy.
What a luxury to let dappled sunshine dry my hair this morning. Walking the rise of hills hurried my breath and released it again as those hills sloped back down. I crossed paths with a chipmunk and good morning-ed fellow walkers, all of us waving away the incessant deer flies.
Walking the dirt road today, I remembered other dirt roads, childhood roads, where I walked to school, never once thinking about anywhere other than right where I was. So I practiced that kind of presence today in honor of that girl I used to be.
Sweat bubbled on my nose and streaked across my forehead as I walked, only a hop, skip, and jump away from summer. There’s hope and happiness and freedom in summer, and I’m ever so happy to be out in it, grab ahold of it – deer flies and all.
I’m thankful for those who plant their gardens alongside the road for the pleasure and enjoyment of walkers-by like me. Roses climb a trellis while springtime pansies linger awhile longer under the mailbox. Chalk drawings in a driveway welcome summer as only a child just out of school can.
I want to remember this morning. Remember the breeze taking me by surprise and the glorious green surrounding me as I walk. There’s the swoop of a sparrow flying to rest on a fence post and the bounce of a robin across the neighbor’s front lawn.
Make no mistake – I saw that poison ivy spreading its way and growing alongside wild roses and the purple tufts of clover. So I’m reminded to admire not only the sunshine but the clouds too. I know rain sometimes ruins our plans and hopefully waters our plants – both. There’s the duality. Learning to savor the comings and goings, hellos and goodbyes, summers and winters. To spend these days wisely and aware.
Soon the sunflowers in the bed out back will stand taller than I do. Pumpkins will one day be ready to carve with our granddaughter. Summer’s car washes in the driveway will be replaced with new chores, with gathering, and nesting, layering and readying for rest.
But just for today, a warm breeze ruffles the ferns, tosses the buttercups, and distracts the bugs.
And I’m grateful.
Slow down, you move too fast
You got to make the morning last
Laze. Window gaze.
Stretch. Smile. Be.
Here. Now. And nowhere else.
Just kicking down the cobblestones
Looking for fun and feeling groovy
Walking. Talking. Seeking. Finding.
The first wild daisies. My favorite.
“There’s only a handful of days like this in the whole year,” I say.
“Could the sky be any more blue?” you answer.
Ba da-da da-da da-da, feeling groovy
Hello lamppost, what’cha knowing
I’ve come to watch your flowers growin’
Ain’t you got no rhymes for me?
Hello peace and peonies. Peaches and berries.
Hello to the what’s possibles and the always predictables.
Hello to the maybe I wills and the probablys I won’t.
Good morning sun, I see your shine for me.
Hello Monday, make some hope for me.
Doot-in doo-doo, feelin’ groovy
Ba da da da da da da, feelin’ groovy
Thanks to the breeze. The green, the growing.
Coming to be the me I’m knowing.
I’m humbled and happy and couldn’t want more.
Life I love you, I’m ready to soar.
I got no deeds to do, no promises to keep
I’m dappled and drowsy and ready to sleep
Let the morning time drop all its petals on me
Life, I love you, all is groovy
*The 59th Street Bridge Song (Feelin’ Groovy) by Paul Simon
The school bus rolled down our road this morning at 6:40
Same as always
Keeping to the schedule
As if nothing had changed
As if the same thing couldn’t happen again today
Here
Or somewhere else
As if grief and terror and fear and horror
Didn’t wait by the side of the road for that bus
As if parents didn’t linger one minute more
For a last glimpse through the window
As if innocence didn’t climb aboard
Each and every day
For an education.
In the morning
sitting with a blank page
a black BIC pen
journal folded in half
writing on the flat side
plump cursive
often forgetting to dot i
or cross t
“You write so slowly,” she said once.
I’ve thought about that comment many times over the years,
only now feeling grateful,
instead of criticized,
I am writing at all.
I have so many writing ideas when there’s no time to write.
Truly, I have ever so much more to say once upon a work day, and despite my whenever I have day off intentions, I hardly ever follow through. I’ve netted many a willow wisp of an idea in the hour or so before my shift starts, but I live onward in the day and in the days after that without looking back to whatever thought I captured.
I have to believe if I had something important to say, I couldn’t help myself but say it.
Still, ideas I’ve left unexplored feel like hopes neglected and a voice – my voice – ignored.
I’ll need to meet myself face-to-face at this intersection of what I say I want and walking what I talk.
I wonder why the commitments to myself are those I’m least likely to honor?
Hope is hardy though, especially and always in spring. If ever there was a time for new growth, this is it.
So look for me nestled … and writing … among the branches of the forsythia, anticipating the bloom of the lilac, my words, and me.
When I awoke this morning, two complaints I remembered from the day before perched on my lips like two plump robins ready to fly aloft.
It was a conscious moment. A powerful pause – mid-thought – in which I interrupted my own self before I spoke.
I closed my mouth, and I think my heart smiled.
The collective energy of us really needs me to pause more often. The greater good needs more … good … or at the very least, one less litany of who and what’s lacking. Obviously, I’m still becoming the person I’d most like to be.
Sometimes, one hopeful year is lived one moment at a time.
Thirty-six hours at home. One hot shower and one warm bath on a extremely cold day. Twenty-eight tidy, white stitches cast on Nana’s knitting needles (with any luck, mittens-to-be for a pair of toddler hands.) Five hardy Red Star chickens in the coop out back. A cluster of six red tulips plucked from a grocery store bucket. Two pieces of homemade pizza for dinner. One rainbow shirt and a wish granted. Two days until the full Wolf moon. Eighteen additional minutes of daylight since the New Year. The hope of a 27 degree heat wave tomorrow.
What can I do in this day?
(A meditation.)
How can I do better? Be better? Feel better? What blessings have I forgotten to count?
How can I be kinder? More compassionate? More empathetic?
How can I be a better listener? Give more? Smile more? Friendly more?
Where am I needed? Who and how can I help? What’s my purpose?*
What can I do to live with more heart? More hope?
What can I do in this day to strengthen my body? My spirit? My faith?
How do I human -best- in this world? This world right here, right now. Especially right now.
What can I do in this day?
*Thanks to Linda Stoll for finding the word I was looking for.
one hopeful year 