In the Pink

Yesterday evening, for the first time in probably two years, I started to have all the signs of a cold... sneezing, stuffy head, feeling a bit chilled and grumpy.

I looked at the symptoms and asked myself, "What is it about all these elements that I am drawing toward me that I need to look at?"

I decided I could best evaluate all this from under the down coverlet and climbed into bed early. Historically, going back many decades to when I was little, faking a cold meant I didn't have to go to school. I got to be so good at it that my mother hated to take my temperature because she knew it was going to be higher than normal and she would have to call the school and tell them I wasn't going to be there. Sometime around lunchtime, when it was too late to take me to school, I would have a miraculous recovery and my temperature would be back to my normal, which is lower than 98.6. And I would have had a lovely day reading and listening to the radio - back in those days, when horses had toes, we didn't have a television.

Jey-hu and I have had a lot of intense things to take care of recently and so when I began my reflection, I realized that it was my mind and body saying, "We need to have a retreat from the activities and go from the very busy "doing," and shift gears from stop to just "being." Kind of like letting the car be in "Park" or at idle. Idyll. Ideal. Yeah.

This morning when I woke up to sunshine and the magnolias just dripping petals all over the yard, I knew I was back "in the pink," and ready to see what the day had to offer. The morning drive to the post office to pick up the mail was crisp, but clear and bright - a respite from the rain and greyness which is about to come back... forecast is for wet weather probably through the weekend.

Later this afternoon on the drive home from a visit with a friend I noticed (and the shutter was too slow so it's a bit fuzzy) that "the pink" was still present... can you see it, too? You can probably see the rain falling over our house as well because we live almost dead ahead of the roadway up on the hill.