As the coral sun sets in a sea of softly apricot sky, I drive down the familiar bumps and curve of our own driveway after a long day in town. Three small girls, happily sticky with the residue of free Dumdum suckers from the bank, tumble out of the car and I herd them inside to put on pajamas, brush teeth and crawl into bed. We kill all the mosquitoes in their room, say prayers together, turn out the lights. And then, I go back out to unload the groceries, a flat of plants from the greenhouse, and a newly repaired bicycle that’s ready for a six-year-old to learn to pedal. It’s late and I’m tired, but suddenly I pause in the midst of my trips up and down the porch steps, because—
There’s a milky half slice of moon in one half of the sky, a nearer-than-usual planet blinking like a solitaire diamond in the other.
The barn roof and my bridal wreath spirea in full bloom are glowing pure white in the gathering darkness.
The heady fragrance of lilac is on the breeze, perfuming the night.
I hear the whistle of a woodcock’s wings,
the hoarse voices of frogs along the shore,
one loon calling to another,
then a deep boom from beyond the trees on the other side of the lake. Somebody, on this ordinary Monday evening in June, is shooting fireworks up into the perfect night sky. I stay paused, whole watermelon cradled in my arms, to scrutinize the horizon and see if I can catch a glimpse of the sparkling explosions above the treetops.
And then, like a bit of falsetto to offset all the bass, comes the whine of a cloud of mosquitoes who had taken a surprisingly long time to realize there was human flesh waiting to be sampled in the great outdoors. I hurry inside, grateful that they stayed away just long enough to give me time to savor what I’m too often in a hurry to discover:
that even when you’re tired and to-do list is long, or maybe especially then,
there’s incredible beauty and wonder to be found in an ordinary moment in time,
if you just take the time to pause and notice.
“Cease striving, and know that I am God.” (Psalm 46:10)
“He has made everything beautiful in its time.” (Ecclesiastes 3:11)
It’s the best part of spring, that brief period of time when life begins to reemerge from the bare branches and brown earth. The world is exploding almost visibly with life, and I hardly dare blink lest I miss something. Everywhere I look there are buds bursting open, leaves unfolding, new scenes unfolding and an unending number of discoveries to make.
Then, there are the woodsy pilgrimages to make, traditions dating to my childhood, like going in search of the dainty lavender and white hepaticas that are so absolutely quintessential of a Minnesota spring.
And, if I’m paying attention and watching my step as I go, there is almost always something new to discover. Something unexpected, like the strange forms of emerging horsetail at the edge of a gravel country road. Or a pair of sandhill cranes, flapping their half-graceful, half-ungainly way out of the maze of last year’s cornstalks. Or a fisher bounding across a lonely, narrow, backwoods road, stopping just long enough to glance back at us curiously.
Beauty in the expected and familiar; beauty in the unexpected and unfamiliar. Truly,
Sometimes, nearly always, there’s no end to the cold and snow in February.
And we found them—puddles, liquid blue and silver, beneath cotton candy clouds in February.
Rejoicing Hills 