Today and Tomorrow
I forget sometimes that the spring flower season is upon us. The pasture behind the house is covered in the golden blooms of tickweed. The miniature crape myrtle is festooned with pink. The sage is gray and lavender. The lantana is yellow and red. There is color everywhere and new life. The chinquapin I feared dead, has risen to become fully leafed. My gardens are abundant.
It’s a wonder how all those wonders can be so easily overlooked. But the fever pitch of self-pity drowns out a lot. And the beauty of nature seems to be the first to go as the world turns gray inside the mind. Luckily, there’s a little sprite inside me that eventually gets it together, sticks his head up, and says, “Hey, dude, I think we’ve wallowed enough. Things are starting to mildew. Can we get on with it?” And I say, “Sure.” And off we go, me and my little internal voice, partying on down the road.
It reminds me of my arrival in Texas in 1963. It was the middle of my junior year. I’d just left my friends and a girl who kissed me goodbye in a way I’d never been kissed before. On the drive from Portsmouth to Houston, I was a melancholy mess. But when we arrived in January to clear blue skies and our new life, the past became the past. There was now and tomorrow and that was all that mattered for me and my sprite.