My flat-screen TV shares a wall with two big windows, one on each side, that look out into my backyard. This wall had been little more than a great design concept until an early morning in March 2021 when it transformed into a laboratory of existential discovery.
It was early dawn and the automated channel surfer on my smart TV was flipping through channels. Ever the efficiency nerd, while the TV did its thing, I decided to pull back the curtains to my windows because, why not?
As the TV rolled through the channels in the background, the beauty of the fresh new shoots of Daffodils that had just broken through the earth’s surface got my attention. The sun’s early rays turned the stems a bright green under a lavender sky. The wonderous significance of the scene was edifying…life emerging as if on cue and all other components of nature conspiring to help it along without so much as a prompt. From the cool crisp air, to the dew drops that glistened like glitter on everything they touched, to the soft brilliance of the sun, and more, the signs of life and hope turned me into an instant addict as I stood planted firmly at the window.
Almost as soon as I recognized the bliss I was feeling thanks to my visual attention, I also realized that my aural attention had been taking in the sound being emitted from the various channels the TV had been sampling for me. More curious was the fact that nearly all the channels were talking about the 1-year anniversary of COVID-19 and looking back at the year that was. Needless to say, the discussion points were all grim.
Suddenly I was very aware of the juxtaposition. As I was processing my (dis)orientation, a little rabbit happened by and stopped at my emerging Daffodils. I watched his nose wiggle away furiously while the rest of his body remained perfectly still, his eyes fixated on the bright green stems. If I didn’t know better, I would swear he was talking to them. This bliss was so readily available to me and yet I could feel the talking heads on TV jockeying for my attention as well.
In an instant I found myself with 3 choices:
- Give my full attention to what was happening outside my window
- Give my full attention to what was happening on TV
- Stay on the proverbial fence about it and power through the ambivalence
This was a no-brainer. As I pondered why, given a choice, anybody would choose to look back at a year filled with pain instead of looking for every sense of hope so readily available in the present, I turned off the TV and pulled up a chair to my window.
Mr. Cottontail had it right. Best bargain ever!
Here’s wishing you many beautiful Spring bargains of your own.
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