Thursday Morning

This morning as I was sitting out on the porch writing my Morning Pages, a little green grasshopper caught my eye as he busily made his way along the porch railing.  As he walked he tapped his very long, over sized antennae along his path like a blind man  tapping his cane on the sidewalk.  He was wearing little black dots on his hind feet, just tootling along very intent on what he was doing. He took no notice of me watching him. A sweet interruption from my writing. 

My new philosophy in life is to move ahead in the places that are open to me, to look around as I journey though time, seeing things, learning from them, recording them in writing, photography, painting, etc. I will take the time to see beauty and good and, to appreciate the stops along the way--life's unexpected interruptions.

I will enjoy the road I'm on because this journey is my life, my learning, my joy and my pain.  The end of this journey is when I die.  So it's senseless to rush to the finish line, completely oblivious to my surroundings and intent only on that finish line thinking there is some sort of prize there.  There is no prize there! The prizes are scattered along the way.  Sometimes right in front of me, sometimes a little off the path in the form of an interruption, or just something delightful that just unexpectedly shows up like a little green grasshopper with antennae six times longer than his body or an amazing sunrise that I capture with my camera.  There are so many prizes along the way that it's a waste to go down the road too fast and miss them all.

This is not to say my journey will always be happy and without hard times and struggle. But hard times and struggle bring strength, understanding, and appreciation. They are a very valuable part of life if you see them as teachers rather than foes.