Grabbing It By The Something or Others

I found this nifty couple of sentences in the book I'm reading right now - well one of the books, this is the one I have in my office for enjoyment during my lunch break - from Eat, Pray, Love:

"When you sense a faint potentiality for happiness after such dark times you must grab onto the ankles of that happiness and not let it go until it drags you face-first out of the dirt – this is not selfishness, but obligation. You were given life; it is your duty (and also your entitlement as a human being) to find something beautiful within life, no matter how slight."

After all the recent uncertainty about my work situation, and worry about my husband's heart attack from which he is recovering wonderfully, and still feeling grief over two deaths in the last year and still getting used to the move here from the Bay Area I felt like I was really in the soup there for a couple of weeks. Yet all along, there were those bright shining moments of beauty smacking me in the face - driving home down the hill and seeing that magic hour of light as the sun is starting to slant just right into our little valley.

I guess I really kind of hoped I would be laid off too so I could spend more time in the garden and do more writing and fiddle with the camera. That's not how it was so my choice is to make the best of it and look for the good stuff and the happiness right here and now anyway. Someone said that you're in hell if you want to be somewhere other than where you are.

Tomorrow, I am going to plant a big patch of purple petunias. And then I'll pull about 84 more cubic yards of weeds and add them to the pile. As I weed, I see visions of what the garden can be, will be soon.