Finally Friday

Well, dear ones, the sun is shining brightly here in Carolina, after several days of rain, and though the morning air is chill, the promise of warmth is in the sun's early rays coming though my window. Of course, those lovely rays are also alive with the dust motes floating in my room, reminding me that today needs to be a "cleaning day". Get out the dust cloth...get out the vacuum cleaner...mop under the bed... shake out the bathroom rugs...run a couple of loads of laundry...and
then perhaps buy some lovely tulips for a vase in the living room to bring the outdoors inside and lift my spirits.

The dredges of the flu remain like sludge at the bottom of my cup, and though each day i feel more and more myself, energy is slow in returning fully and i find myself trying to cope with a self that seems not fully me. My morning readings remind me that this, too, shall pass...and that my task is to be with what is happening rather than to rail against it- which is an exercise in futility anyway, isn't it? I'm trying...not always successfully...but i'm trying.

Have just begun Reflections of a Peacemaker: A Portrait through Heartsongs, a collection of the writings of Mattie Stepanek, the young boy who captivated so many hearts with his writing from a very young age as he lived with- and eventually died from (at the age of thirteen)- dysautonic mitochondrial myopathy, a form of muscular dystrophy. What wisdom from one so young! Let me share one of his short poems which grabbed my attention this morning:

     Grasp of Truth
     If you have
     Enough breath
     To complain
     About anything
     You have more than
     Enough reason
     To give thanks
     About something

Don't you love it? What a marvelous reminder for me as i am complaining this day about my slow recovery from the nasty flu...
giving thanks this day for the sunshine...for my family and friends...
for the ability to DO the cleaning today...for the birds singing outside my window...for the lovely oatmeal waiting to be cooked and eaten.
Gratitude...can i manage to live in that attitude today? i hope so.

And now i wish for each of you a day marked with meaning, with joy, with all the strength and courage you need. May your heart sing a melody of gratitude now and then, or simply hum along if singing seems too hard. And may you know every moment that you are loved.
love, linda

melancholy
i have not breathed enough
fresh air lately
and so i languish like
a hot-house flower
a not-quite-real reflection of
her wild and free sisters
waving wildly in the winds
of March