August 29, 2014

It is hard for me to sit down by my swimming pool, put my feet up on a stool, and look at the beautiful garden without seeing all the jobs that I need to do. I can build to-do lists in my head without any paper. On this late afternoon, I look across the rock-edged pool to the two sharp-leafed yuccas at the shallow end of the pool. At their feet the bright yellow black-eyed susans hold up their sunny faces, like children to school teachers on the first day of school. Nearby a humming bird is loving up the red blossoms of the cardinal flower, and next to them the crape myrtle is shedding its bark to reveal beautiful layers of dark red.

But my eyes move behind the two yuccas to the tall weeds that need to be yanked out. And further behind them to the dead tips of the low growing cedar hit by rust; the dead branches need to be cut out before the disease advances further. In the background on the grassy slope of the hill, the late afternoon sun lights up the gray leafless branches of the cherry tree stricken by fire blight. Bill planted this tree, and our daughter picked cherries from the tree to bake cherry pies for him on Father’s Day. Now the tree is almost entirely dead and needs to be removed.

And in that moment, a bluebird flies into the dead tree and perches on a gray branch. It is as blue as the cloudless sky above. All I can see is beauty.

Beauty before me, beauty around me. All I need to do is stop and look.