I am learning to count my blessings.
A couple of mornings ago and feeling sad, I was blessed with texts from two steadfast friends whose cheery messages lifted me out of the gloomy moment into appreciation of having them in my life.
A walk in the park gave me treasures. An almond tree in blossom full of bumble bees, happy daffodils and, under a willow tree covered in pale green tassles, violets.
Imagine the smell of marzipan and the lazy hum of bumble bees.
Violets under the willow.
Yesterday brought bugs, litter bugs.
The beautiful park has litter. Not teenies’ sweetie wrappers but the litter of takeaway meals, drinks bottles and cigarette packets of teenagers.
Yesterday evening,, I wished a teenager in sparkly tutu and pink tights a Happy Birthday. She politely and happily accepted my best wishes. Later, as the group laughed, drank and joked by their car, they carefully lobbed their bottles into the stream.
I can’t help feeling these young people were failed by their adults. We were taught to pick up our litter, to put it in the bin. We were not allowed to leave school until the playground had been cleared of sweet papers. Somehow we haven’t passed the message on. These are not bad youngsters. They are vibrant and excited, a danger to themselves in their fast cars and quest for excitement and I worry about them.
Litter seems a minor thing to worry about but it does annoy me.
My thought for the day from Chogyam Trungpa’s The Sacred Path of the Warrior says “The setting sun way of letting go is to take a drunken vacation or to be wild and sloppy….For the warrior, you understand that your life ,as it is, contains the means to unconditionally cheer you up.”
So later, in my mind, I put their wild and sloppy ways to one side and celebrated the happiness of the youngsters, wished them well in their precious lives and counted my blessings .
emptynester 