Also, That's It: Walking in a Wonderland

You know how when you or someone you're close to buys a new car, and then suddenly, you see that car everywhere? It's like every tenth person went out that same day and bought a shiny new Buick Enclave and decided to drive it around at the same time as you are driving around your trusty (and a bit rusty) Jeep Liberty. And how you start to wonder if maybe you're in some psychological experiment or that maybe you're living your own version of The Truman Show, but then, in order to get through the day without being completely solipsistic, you tell yourself no, it's just an adjustment in your perception and awareness? That your brain is an amazing thing that blocks certain stimuli and emphasizes others throughout your day and just the very fact that you've taken an extra moment to look at something and talk about it and compliment your friend on their choice of SUV means you notice it more. And isn't that an even more amazing experience than being part of some secret experimental reality television show because what if it means you could control what you notice and don't notice to some greater extent?

You know that experience?

I keep having it with flowers. A few weeks ago with lilacs, and just in the last few days, with honeysuckle. They aren't just growing and blooming in my yard or along my morning walk route. They're growing and blooming everywhere I go right now, and I not only see them but really notice them and pay attention to them and remember the week during the summers that I used to spend at my grandparents in Southern Illinois, when my grandpa taught me how to harvest the sweet nectar from the honeysuckle and how I would then wander around their neighborhood looking for new bushes. And then I start wondering when I can teach William to do the same and IF I should teach William to do the same and make a mental note to Google honeysuckle and poison when I get home before scratching that mental note because, "I survived," a phrase I tell myself and Jason quite often.

And then I look up and see what I suspect to be Columbine and remember my Grandma De and trips to Colorado and Rocky Mountain National Park.

And then, I round a curve and see lots of other purple flowers and am in awe of God's timing, how when one flower seems to be done blooming, some others are just starting to bloom.

Every once in a while, I start to yearn for those paved concrete roads or dream of sidewalks to smooth our daily walks, but then I look up and a fox darts out of the woods or a red-headed woodpecker starts in on a nearby tree, and I have no problem with the gravel in my shoes or the mosquito bites on my ankles. I choose to focus on the peace and beauty, not because the pain and inconveniences don't exist, but because my mind is an amazing thing that is capable of making that choice and following through with it.