The Light Upstream

No one who lives in the sunlight makes a failure of his life.

Albert Camus (Nobel Prize Laureate 1957)

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Hello Friend,

Please come in! So glad you stopped in today.

Will you have tea? I’ve boiled the kettle and there are a few choices: Camomile, Honey & Vanilla; Egyptian Licorice (my favourite); and regular English Breakfast Tea. Please help yourself to your choice. Cream, sugar, and honey are right there, and a slice of warm coffee cake is waiting for you too.

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It would be lovely to sit out on the veranda, except smoke from the wildfires has wafted down from farther north and settled over us like a blanket. It’ll be easier on our lungs if we stay in today. Would you like the wing back chair with a footstool for your feet, or the comfy leather one that’s big enough to curl up in?

We are on the edge of new beginnings. Lady Spring has arrived here in western Canada, but she has only just begun to adorn herself in her full glory. I see tiny buds on the young lilac bushes and the first vapours of baby leaves on the trees. Neighbours have reported sightings of crocuses and tulips in their yards, but nothing of the kind is peeking through here at The Cleft. I’m impatient. Waiting is hard work, isn’t it?

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Never yet was a springtime, when the buds forgot to bloom.

Margaret Elizabeth Sangster

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As I drive the roads near our country home, I see new lambs trying their first nibbles of grass, and little calves playfully prancing farther and farther away from their mothers. And just this week we spotted bison babies newly arrived. The Canada Geese are back from their winter retreat somewhere in the south, and I see goose couples staking their claims and making their homes ready for new arrivals.

The robins are back. I only know this because I hear them in the early mornings. I have yet to see my first robin of the year, but the red-winged blackbirds are in abundance. And the black-capped chickadees, of course, have been here all winter. I used to believe that the chickadee’s song changed in the spring, but I’ve learned that the males sing more often in the spring. Less of the chick-a-dee-dee-dee and more of the hey-sweetie. I suppose, like the rest of us, he’s feeling spring upon him.

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May my heart always be open to little birds who are the secrets of living.

ee cummings

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I’m anxious to get the garden in; to plant flowers. But I’m also hesitant. Last year, just after I’d planted the bedding plants and was thrilling to their beauty, we had an angry hailstorm. We’d planted two new lilac bushes the day before. Everything was stripped or destroyed, and all of the plants struggled for the rest of the growing year.

Life often feels like we’re pushing upstream. One day the blue sky seems to go on forever and the next it’s wearing a heavy coat of smoke. Still, the calves frolic. The lilac bushes bud.

And I plant seeds.

There’s always something to hope for, some loveliness to search out. It becomes a matter of shifting our focus and giving our attention to the small beauties that are right there, if we will only see.

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Teach the children … Stand them in the stream, head them upstream, rejoice as they learn to love this green space they live in, its sticks and leaves and then the silent, beautiful blossoms.

Mary Oliver

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To plant a garden is to believe in tomorrow.

Audrey Hepburn

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Thank you for dropping by today, it was such a pleasure to visit with you.

Stay safe out there, and see you next time.

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Feature photo by Olga1205 on Pixabay

© Joylene Bailey 2024