Clouds of Daisies

It was the kind of day you didn't eat with a fork and knife, but instead drink down like a cool gush of water on a hot day.  I drove from my home to my office south, and suddenly became aware of the millions of daisies and Queen Anne's lace that filled the green ditches. If I turned the world upside down, I'd have a green sky, with white "clouds" here and there. 

The real clouds hung so low in the sky that I wanted to reach out and pluck one.  I thought back to the days when I would lie on the ground and look at them, visualizing their vague shapes into creatures, and other things.

The beauty of it smashed my eyes.  In my careless living, I had forgotten to notice life around me. Summer has come, my favorite time of year, and I'm too caught up in my own running to see the world around me.

No matter where my feet have taken me, there's always a moment when nature startles.  In the crevices of Wall Street, the sun peeped through for only a moment to play new shadows on the walls was like glimpsing a hiding friend.  The desert between El Paso and Alamagordo looks like a God Forsaken Land, until you see the yellow flowers of the cactus blooming in a sea of sagebrush.  On the mountaintops of Turnagain Arm, on of the most beautiful drives in the world, tiny white blossoms intermingle with the lupin, purple and distinguished, decorating the Alaskan landscape for all to enjoy. And the icy cold of New Orleans in March, biting, waking up every feelng, as you browse through Royal Street makes you appreciate the power of water in the air.

So often I forget to appreciate the world around me. But today I want to slow down time, to spend an extra moment in the lake, feeling the cold water around me. I want to look at the clouds with my youngest son and dream about floating in them.  Those  daisies reminded me to enjoy today, the days of summer now, and remember those of the summers past.