Driving down the road a few days ago I happened to glance over into a steep ditch along the side of the highway and there was a single clump of daffodils just blooming away as bright as the sun.
So, naturally, I stopped and climbed down off the road into the ditch to take a picture. My new camera gives me a sense of adventure apparently as I totally didn’t think twice about whether or not a big fat rattlesnake might also be soaking up the sunshine in all that overgrown grass and underbrush.
Well, I didn’t think about it until I was crouching down to get an eye level shot of the flowers and then I did think about it and nearly passed out.
In the ditch.
Facedown.
Right on top of my new, not paid for yet, camera.
But none of that happened and I went right on snapping photos while cars flew by on the road above my head.
I wasn’t having a particularly bad day or anything but the sight of these bright little cheerful flowers just blooming away all by themselves in a ditch on the side of the road made me suddenly feel uplifted. “Bloom where you are planted”, a sometimes over-used phrase, popped into my head and made perfect sense. I have recently been struggling with the possibility of a really huge transition in my life that is rather out of my immediate control and a lot of “What will I do, how can I start over, etc.” thoughts have been in the back of my mind. And here, in the most unlikely of places in the most unlikely of ways, was an answer.
Bloom where you are planted.
Maybe circumstances aren’t ideal or what you would choose or even conventional…but part of living an open, creative life is making the most of what you have, wherever you are. And then, again, I am reminded of the foundation of my current life and work…that the life I live was created and shaped by change. I am reminded that through many trials and struggles and hilarious misadventures I have come to be exactly where I am today.
Sometimes that may mean that I'm in a ditch…with daffodils. And that isn’t a half bad place to be.
I hope that wherever you are today you find a way to bloom.
peace & love
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