wildflowers

Yesterday, I promised myself I would write today (which is not usually a hard promise to keep, except for the time factor), and this morning, I wondered just what I would write about. I poured coffee, took the dogs out, and sat on the porch step, where I found myself thinking about fences. Like the dogs, my thoughts began to wander around the green and somewhat weedy yard of my mind.

At first, my fence thoughts were absolutely related to the dogs. I've often pictured a fence around the yard, and I even know what style I'd like, complete with the gates (I have a few pictures of inspiration that I cut out and put in a binder, long before there was Pinterest!). Of course, because it was early morning, and I was alone, and I had coffee in my hand--and, quite honestly, because I am me, and I can't help it!--I began to wonder whether the fence would more likely keep things (people? animals? demons?) in or out. Which lead, inevitably, to the idea of the fences in my life, in my mind, in my heart.

Forever, it seems, I've had fences inside to keep myself safe. What I've found is that keeping myself safe doesn't always allow for growing. I've let people through the gates, and some have sowed weeds, which angered, irritated and frustrated me enough to close and lock the gate again. More have helped to tend my garden; helping to pull out and dispose of the weeds, helping me to select the right flowers, fruits, vegetables.....Still....

It's the fences that have kept me in.

I've opened the gates for a number of reasons, and I'm determined to keep them opened, cautiously, for a while, anyway. I've discovered that there is buried treasure, as well as weed roots with tendrils that have been missed, broken off, forgotten.

It's funny--the fence I picture around our yard is only tall enough and the spaces are only narrow enough to keep the dogs in, yet when I am looking at myself honestly, there's been a stockade fence in some of the areas of my psyche, and I, myself, have been kept out. It's time to rebuild.

Each day, I am learning anew to appreciate those who make me happy, who allow me to be happy, who know happiness. I'm finding the roses and the wildflowers, and smelling each one.

"Let us be grateful to people who make us happy; they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom." ~Marcel Proust.