never saw blue like that

This blog is my collection of silver linings - my lemonade squeezed from lemons life has sporadically handed out for me to do with what I may. There are very few scenarios too downright horrific to extract any hope from. The bulk of the challenges I'll encounter, while wrestling my doubts and pressing onward in pursuit of love, freedom (from myself) and purpose, I'll endure, pray through fervently, and then decide to either learn from them or harbor resentment. My overarching goal, here, is to develop through practice and awareness, a genuine spirit of gratitude.

Because it is true that absence does indeed make the heart grow fonder, I am thankful for the changing seasons ushering in and back out again warmth then coolness, long evenings then shorter ones, blossoming trees, fierce looking icicles, wild strawberries. I am choosing (and using all of my determination to do so) to meditate on the above photos of our park, taken in late summer when the blueness of the skies no longer impressed me - when the sweat burning my eyes had me pining for a breeze so chilly, it would take my breath away.

Someday, I am sure of it, I will once again feel upon my shoulders the heat of the sun. I'll wear a single layer of cotton instead of scratchy woolen sweaters and knee socks. I will nostalgically post my memories of lazy weekends watching the snow fall out our window. I'd be wise, however, to focus all of my current energies on seizing the present - forecast, frustrations, ages of my children, the present chances to inhale my blessings and unearth something, anything, as many things as possible, worth celebrating.