Open

All of the windows in my house are open and the cross breeze from the Back River marsh rushing towards the ocean blows through it. There are 15 windows in the red room that allows it in, rushing through the yellow living room then into the purple kitchen and finally through the open sliding glass doors where it becomes concentrated hitting me sitting on the beloved back deck where. I may as well be sitting in front of a giant fan blowing on me.

I love it!

This time of year and into early summer I’ll keep the windows open. The outside becomes part of the inside at my house. It is hard to differentiate one from the other. Rooms literally spill into one another mostly distinguished by colors. The kitchen spills out onto the beloved back deck so it’s like one big room.

Fran is loving this time of year as she’s decorated her thousand shades of green with purple wisteria. It is beautiful just like she was so beautiful and I have a hard time not just staring at it. Celebrating it! Knowing that it won’t last … just like she didn’t last. Just like so many others didn’t last either.

Where I live is a pretty open place. I like it that way.

When it’s all closed up for winter it’s not as nice. The warmth flees. Cold descends. Hearts break.

As I sit here looking through three large rooms out of the windows in the front of my house I’m struck by something. I try to live my life like the house I live in … open.

Lots of color!

Lots of diversity!

Fun!

A celebration!

For better or for worse, that’s what I’ve done.

It’s hard to not think about worse first. Its human nature I guess … like slowing down to look at a car wreck. These images flash through my mind like the wind rushing through my house.

Then Fran bops me on the head with her purple wisteria and the beauty of things to come take over my thoughts. The beloved back deck is filled with color and loveliness. A Palm Tree sits close to me as I write. Behind Fran’s thousand shades of decorated green are trees of every kind … Palms and Pines and things I don’t know.

They’re all budding and blooming and spring has put the cold dark nights of winter behind me. And it was “a long cold lonely winter” to quote one of the hymns of my life. I feel a part of all of this be-birthing.

There is this one tree though. It is a hold out. There are no blooms. There’re not even any buds. It is cold and naked as though winter still commanded life.

I know a lot of people like that. They stay rooted in what is behind them. They remain stuck in the past. In spite of the beauty surrounding them, they stick out like a sore thumb. They are sore thumbs!

I was in Savannah yesterday, a rare trip these days. The first person that I met with remains stuck in the past so that’s mostly what we talked about and it was … sad.

The next person that I met with had one foot in the past and another in the future. It was a crazy conversation bouncing back and forth between … then … and now. It occurred in a happy place however where I was greeted with warm hugs and kisses.

My last meeting was about the future. Smiles abounded and were shared. Souls connected and words were not always necessary. The future has a way of pulling you along like that if you’re willing to give yourself to it.

The sun takes this moment to dance through the Palm Tree sitting beside me. I pause to watch.

Life is good today.

I wonder why?

Then I know.

It’s all about tomorrow.