When I first read romance author Trish Milburn’s post about her effort to gather authors together in a group (Upbeat Authors) to write positive upbeat posts, I hesitated to join. What could I possibly offer that would be inspirational to others? But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that’s exactly what this project is for—turning negative thoughts to positive, turning my negative thoughts to positive.
I signed on, and thus I write my first post, about a simple pleasure I might enjoy, Trish’s topic for this week.
Weather permitting, I enjoy taking my morning cup of coffee out to the screened porch and letting nature start my day without the hassle of having to travel to a nature trail.
I first began doing this in Florida many years ago when my mother was ill in a nearby hospital. I stayed at her condo so I could bring her the things she wanted while she was hospitalized. But, during those two weeks as the inevitable revealed itself, and the four weeks afterwards, returning to her condo became emotionally difficult. I hated it, dreaded every moment of returning to the place where there was so much of her.
But I soon discovered she liked to take her coffee out on her screened balcony. She never told me about her habit, but I figured it out from the existence of certain items on the tiny patio table next to the most comfortable chair on the balcony. Shaded by a huge tree, her second floor condo location put her balcony just about in the tree. It was a tree house with a screen.
So, one morning, I took a cup of coffee out there, and I sat in her chair and listened to the birds, and the rustle of the wind through the leaves, and the rattle of the flapping palm leaves. And I closed my eyes and let my mind wander, and the quiet soothed my hurting soul and gave me the strength to do what I needed to do as my mother’s eldest child.
Nearly twenty years have passed since her death, and to this day I still enjoy taking my morning cup of coffee out to the screened porch at home. And as I rock softly in an outdoor chair, I enjoy the warmth of the eastern sun on my face, the birds calling to each other in the trees, the soft rustle of the wind through the leaves, and the incessant chattering of an army of squirrels.
Oh, I can still hear traffic from the nearby four-lane highway, and the whir of lawn mowers down the fairway a piece, and the occasional beeping of a truck backing up, but I tune these out and concentrate on the nature part, on the quiet and not so quiet of God’s creations. I can then start my day feeling the calm and the peace I’m so lucky to have surround me. #upbeatauthors
For more information on Trish’s post – www.trishmilburn.com