Cutting Flowers

“You can cut all the flowers but you cannot keep Spring from coming”-Pablo Neruda…I realized that I had a crisis of belief in heaven’s generosity.

Reading this line was a bit of an epiphany. Perhaps I was made a rabid flower cutter by trauma, the circumstances of my life or the chemical architecture of my brain but I had arrived at the lonely desert island that is the habitat of the curmudgeon and the chronic bitcher. In 92128 you can focus on bird song and wind chimes or on what my wife calls the,”old man sounds” of flatulence, throat clearing and coughing that emanate from every home when you take your morning walk.

Observing my 92128 cronies, I can see a new and better way. At our age a lot of life has been lived and everyone has their stories of personal tragedy- of cancer, family problems, economic struggle- yet they live in the Spring almost all the time. Their positive attitudes are an inspiration. They speak with quiet confidence about the shocks that flesh is heir to and the grab at life zestfully.

This is not easy for me.

As all good friends do, they challenge me at every turn. They tell me to cut the crap when I yell at drivers, they demand that I adapt and overcome when parking is a pain in the ass or the entree is cold. They teach me perspective. They also piss me off. My negative default is a hard won, long life position and I often think, what are these people missing? Shit, after all, is shit. Why don’t they see it?

The answer is simple…they choose not to. They have entered into a contact WITH HOPE.

WHERE DO I SIGN?