It Was What It Was

Oh, how I needed yesterday. We had sun in wide, hazy blue skies and were at nearly 60 degrees(!) 

Birds sang, calling neighbors to step out of their houses and freeing them from the spell of winter. Snow melted from our lawns and we saw green again after two long months of grey-browny-white. During my pretend coffee break from the painting of my kitchen, I sat outside on our winter-dirty, flowerless porch with Lennon and we smiled our most Cheshire smiles. 

During this first porch sitting, we gazed out over our winter-weary neighborhood and called it Good.

Spring was here. A taste, anyway. I didn't have to pretend it had arrived or make anything look Spring-like when what it wasn't. It just was what it was--and it was Spring.

I mean, I do force Springtime into our kitchen. It must be painted yellow, or another bright color, because the sun was snatched away when our carport went up. Even before that, it received only minutes of morning sunlight because sadly, it faces northeast. 

It's all rather like using the flash on your camera or switching on lamps in your rooms in the morning before the sun rises and beams yellow light through the windows. Or smiling when it would be so much easier to cry, but you smile anyway so to bring hope to others--and yourself.

But yesterday wasn't like that--there was no forcing anything or making something, better.

No, it just was what it was. 

A bright day, a gift from God waiting to be received by winter-weary hearts. A gift of hope to flood my soul with memories of all the Springs before until this year's Spring arrives to stay.



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"Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow."
-- Melody Beattie


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