Mellow Lellow

It's not that I wake up each morning with something to say. I have so little to say, really. Sometimes I have an idea, have been working some emotion around from my heart to my head, or worse, from my head to my heart, trying to figure how to say something, anything, that has some meaning. I awake with it, or it will develop during the day and come to me at one moment and evolve days later. Sometimes, it's the day itself that brings to me my words. Today is like that.

This morning on my way to work, I stopped by my friend's house, the friend who is heading back to Vermont tonight after being here for almost two weeks. Her presence here has been familiar, healing, and fun.

Standing in the garden this morning, her youngest daughter held out a yellow flower to me that she had previously plucked from its green stalk. She flashed her big eyes upwards and said, Mell it, it's lellow.

I leaned down to smell the yellow flower and exaggerated my smelling a bit, so much so that a petal went up my nose. Remember that next time you want to make a little girl giggle.



As I drove from my friend's parents' driveway, I thought about how nice it has been to have her here, and how much I'll miss her. Then I thought about the plans we've set in motion for July, and smiled knowing I'd see her again soon.

An hour or so later, I found an unexpected comment here that knocked me to the ground with sadness. I've removed it because it's personal, but I could not remove the feeling it left me, the feeling of wanting more and less at the same time. Wanting something... different.

Then I became reaction. The heat of sadness, the emotion, the desire to respond, or in my case, since I won't be heard, to put my fist through anything at all that would make me bleed, or at least punish me enough to make me feel that whatever pain I was feeling was pain I deserved.

I decide to pause instead. Breathe. Forgive. I know this is necessary for me to be at peace, to free myself from resentment.

Around mid-afternoon, a friend forwarded an email to me. It was an email with a story, the gist of which being that everything happens for a reason. Sometimes things don't seem as they should, the story reminded me, but we need to have faith that the reasons are there whether or not we are able to see them.

She wanted me to be comforted by the story, and I was. But it was at the end of the story that I discovered what I needed. Just words, but knowing how much I care about those in my life, words that I have faith are also true for me.

Somebody is thinking of you.
Somebody is caring about you.
Somebody misses you.
Somebody wants to talk to you.
Somebody wants to be with you.
Somebody hopes you aren't in trouble.
Somebody is thankful for the support you have provided.
Somebody wants to hold your hand.
Somebody hopes everything turns out all right.
Somebody wants you to be happy.
Somebody wants you to find him/her.
Somebody is celebrating your successes.
Somebody wants to give you a gift.
Somebody thinks that you ARE a gift.
Somebody loves you.
Somebody admires your strength.
Somebody is thinking of you and smiling.

Reading those words felt good. Good enough to get my knocked-down self back up, dust off my duff, and move on.