Morning Glory

It's only when people begin to shake loose from their preconceptions, from the ideas that have dominated them, that we begin to receive a sense of opening, a sense of vision.

~ Barbara Ward

I could wax eloquently about how thoughtful it was that she took the time to email me a thank you note for coming to speak to her class. How her initial reaction was, who is this lady and did she say we're gonna write? And how when I said we'd be writing, she thought she might throw up. Okay, she didn't say that, but think mega roller coaster ride and how your stomach does that weird thing. How it just so happened, that once we got going on that cold *Sunday afternoon, she began to feel differently. About the writing. And herself. It was still a roller coaster ride for her, but now it had shifted into the good kind. Anyway, there will be no waxing. After I read her beautiful email, I promptly burst into tears; cracked open by this person's reaching out, and by her writing.

It was a happy sob-fest; a heart-opening, moving stuff around inside me, kind of thing. I believe it's good to cry outside, so I sat on the back porch steps and listened to the birds. It was a Wednesday gift; a moment of gratitude for the way people come together, [often in the oddest moments, and least likely locations,] and connect.

The good news is, I let myself have it, instead of tapping the tears down and getting up to empty the dishwasher. I sat on the paint-worn porch steps and put my head in my hands. And like any good crier, I spread my fingers out so I could see what was going on around me. And then I noticed the shoots popping up out of the ground in my garden. Which led me to get my trowel and shovel and ball of twine. I weeded and shoveled. I moved things around. I brought the clematis up front and dug up the big purple flower and moved it to the back. I tucked some morning glory seeds into the ground and climbed up on Mom's rickety old ladder, attaching twine to the house for the vines to travel up.

I never know when I'm going to receive this sense of opening, sense of vision. But I know enough to trust that it's going to keep showing up, if I just spread my fingers out wide enough to see.

* read "Two by Four-ness"