Ambitious?

Why is it always at night that I start making plans for tomorrow?  I sit on my porch, comfortably full from supper, clean clothes, bathed, ready to relax.  And that is when I feel ambitious.  I will clean the cupboards..tomorrow.  I will get all the winter clothes out of the closet, wash them, and put them away for the summer.....tomorrow.  I will take my loppers out and cut all those pesky thorn tree sprouts that have appeared in our fields and gullies...tomorrow.

But when tomorrow comes my mind tends to forget all those promises made at sunset the night before.  Do I really want to attack those "have to" jobs?  Aren't they really ones that can be left for another day?

YES!  And so I cheerfully do the minimum housework and, like the spendthrift rogue housewife that I am, do things that bring me pleasure.  Walk down to the pond and see how many bullfrogs I can see peering up at me with bulbous eyes.  Stand under the oak tree and watch zebra swallowtail butterflies flit from blossom to blossom.  Sit on the porch, in the shade and read a book from cover to cover.  

Ambition?  I do have plenty of it....just not today.

Flower Power

There is just something about a daisy that makes me smile.  Simple, direct, unassuming, not flashy, but still sending me a message whenever I see them blooming along my road and in the field.  If the day is sunny, they shine even among the weeds and vines in the deepest grass.  In the dim light of evening their bright faces reflect the glory of the passing day.  After the rain, with drops of water  clinging to their petals, they lift their faces to the sky as if to say 'I'm still here.  Bring on the storm.  Bring on the wind. I will continue to bloom until my job is done.'

This has been a few bad weeks for all of us.  Things have happened that we would not wish on our worst enemy.  Untold sorrow, grief, hardship.  Decisions to made, endless waiting, and always,  the knowledge that some of us escaped...and some of us did not. 

I hike down the road and sing songs to myself .  The steady beat of boots on the dry rough road are calming.  When I look around and see the daisies blooming, I begin to relax.  Perhaps I am focusing too much on the here and now.  I need to take courage from these unassuming flowers...they don't shout at me, they don't demand my attention.  They wait quietly there in the fields and furrows beside the road....and bear mute testimony to the power of hope.  That there will be a brighter day tomorrow..that we will all emerge from this time with renewed strength.  And perhaps a better understanding of how the simple things in life are the most precious.

Those plain flowers have a message for us...flower power...it is there at our fingertips.  We just have to reach out and take it.  And tomorrow will be a better day, for sure.