The lake is nearly still, and standing on its bank, I am captivated by its colors. Mostly it’s deep green, but the low sun sends dazzling gold through the pines that streaks the lake’s surface between ribbons of russet and brown where the trunks of the trees are reflected. I gaze at it for a long while before I notice the chunks of white that line the shore across from where I’m standing. Ice, my mind says. The last of it. But then, all at once, a loud honking rips through the air and the ice transforms into fat ducks that push off from the shore and paddle in graceful rows into the lake’s smooth green, stirring its colors as if they were artists and the water their paint.
On your way out the door, smile. Let your grin linger on the threshold for a while and roll across the floor just to let them know, as you leave, how good it was to be there. Give them a picture of you to hold when they think of you in your absence, when they think of your coming for another stay.
The squirrel munches away on the corn that my neighbor put out for him as she had all winter, his nose twitching as he sniffs the uncommonly warm air. He knows what’s coming next, and it’s more than rain and leaves. It’s the reason why he breathes. It’s the spark that lights his fire, the thing that puts the spring into his leap. It’s the birds and the bees and the girls in the trees. And he smells it in the air, and it’s right around the corner.
I’ve been digging in my collection of quotes again this week and found one from Harry Emerson Fosdick that made me stop and think. I like it when that happens, when a sentence or two makes me want to take stock and see how I can add more sizzle to my life.
Here’s Fosdick’s statement: “Rebellion against your handicaps gets you nowhere. Self-pity gets you nowhere. One must have the adventurous daring to accept oneself as a bundle of possibilities and undertake the most interesting game in the world – making the most of one’s best.”
It reminded me of a story I once read about a man who was legally blind, yet, by training himself to focus on the small amount of sight he had, he was able not only to navigate his ordinary world, but eventually to drive a car. He went on to develop a highly successful system to train people with infirmities of various kinds to transcend their difficulties by devoting their attention to whatever abilities they did have. He took that “most interesting game” and played it for all it was worth.
He looked for the possibilities and made the most of the tiny sliver of sight that was his best. Then he saw the possibility of showing others how to do the same and made the most of that, too.
Have you ever dared to think of yourself as a “bundle of possibilities?” What if you did? What possibilities would you find? If you were going to make a list of the things that you considered the best of you, what would you put on your list?
And once you had such a list, suppose you looked at it and asked yourself how you could make the most of these things. What if you let your imagination run wild and blocked out all the “yeah-but’s” that tried to sneak in? What if you opted to play the most interesting game and to imagine how you could make the most of your best?
What would that look like? What would you do? How would you be?
The mere act of imagining your best self opens you to broader, more possibility-laden thinking. That’s a proven fact. Spend 20 minutes describing your best self in writing and see how you feel.
But what if you were to take it beyond mere imagining? What if you decided to go all in and play this most interesting game for real, to focus on something you did well, or were ardently attracted to doing, and made the most of it?
You could start with just one thing, one possibility, one of your favorite things about you and express it 2% better today than yesterday, by intention, because you chose to play the game. Then tomorrow you could do it 2% better than today, and so on. And the thing that was one of the best things about you would get even better and better, and it would pull some of the other things that are good about you right up with it.
Imagine how interesting life would become! And all because you decided to play this, the most interesting game in the world.
Wishing you a week of intriguing discoveries and ideas!
Some irresistible part of puddles calls to toes, even those of giants. Maybe it’s the sheer muddiness, the squish, the wet, the way It lets you feel glued to the ground and still free to wiggle. Maybe it’s the way the puddles show you how you look against sky, or the fact that they sing of spring and bring forth worms and tadpoles. Maybe it’s the here-today-gone-tomorrow part of them that makes you think you’d better wade right in while the wading’s good. Toes know. They hear the call. And in they go. It’s irresistible.
Sploosh! Now there’s a sure sign of spring– car tires swishing through puddles on the road, spraying the sooty heaps of snow into oblivion. And the puddles themselves are proofs too, mirroring the budding trees and the dance of the ever-changing clouds in the high sky. There’s no stopping it now. It’s here, come what may. Why, I can almost hear the peepers singing. Soon now. It won’t be long.
Okay, little lamb. You did it. Laying there in the new grass, your baby hooves tucked up, your ears poked out, your face wearing that little lamb smile, you stole my heart. My eyes send you pets as warm as this new spring sunshine, and I sing you welcome, little one. Oh, baby! You stole this old girl’s heart.
Although seas roar and winds howl, in this space Mother Nature preserves the calm. Here, she provides a nook where peace reigns and the seasons bow to life’s demands for security and shelter. We are holding the calm for you, sing the reeds and and waters and trees, for you who are in the midst of great storms. We are holding beauty for you who are beset with chaos and destruction. We send you the warmth of the early spring sun, and hope, and the promise that, always, after the storms, calm awaits, serenity returns.
When I went out to feed the birds this morning I heard myself breathing the word, “spring!” Undeniably, and all at once, it was here, with its perfume and its light, its pastel hues and puddles and song, and in my heart the welling joy.
This afternoon the first crocuses opened, a pretty little pair, a royal confirmation right here outside my door.
It didn’t snow much here this winter. But today I ran across this piece I wrote in 2015 when the snow fell long and deep.
So then I came to the playground. Well, it’s not a playground exactly. It’s just a set of swings. Fine, sturdy wooden ones hung from hooked rods on a high metal frame, well-built, and sitting there in the woods by one of the few shelters, half way between the parking lot and the forest-edged ponds.
Just looking at them, you could tell they wanted to be in motion. It was all I could do not give them a push. But something held me back. Maybe it was the silence. Maybe it was the snow. So I just stood there, listening, and I swear I heard joyful shrieks and the laughter of children, and that whining sound that swings sing.
Places hold their songs and sing them long after the singers have disappeared. And here were these swings, full of motion, even in their stillness, playing memories through their long winter wait.
