The Gift of a Day (or Two)

I have been allowing myself to coast through these unexpected days at home. According to the Original Plan, I was not even going to be home right now so I have allowed myself to simply go with the flow of the days and they have not taken me far. But they have filled me up with exactly what I needed.

Bonus Day #1 - I had great intentions. I sat down with my Family Book Project and worked at that for several hours.

Then pure and utter exhaustion hit. I was bobbing and weaving at the computer and I thought to myself, "You don't have to do this to yourself!"

Senior Cat found his way to my side and simply sat down on the floor beside me. He gazed lovingly into my eyes from the distance that spanned between us. And he purred. Loudly. So I took him up on his invitation to have a Cat Day with him. I sat down in front of the TV and I woke up many hours later (with Senior Cat nestled into the crook of my bent legs). Sleep never felt so good.

I rested long and hard enough that I was actually fully conscious and awake for the remainder of the day. Sometimes? That is enough. Just coast ...

Bonus Day #2 - I woke up with Great Intentions. Instead, I followed the path that was laid out before me and simply inhaled the day. I read words that I needed/wanted to ingest. I listened to a speaker tell me what-I-most-needed-to-hear. The world held such great interest to me and I breathed it in.

Then I followed a different path of Small Intentions. As I seem to hold the unofficial title of Gatherer of Family Memories, I have a treasure trove of memories, pictures and even a video of my aunt who just passed away. I am not big on giving flowers at a time of loss but I am a great believer of sharing memories. I gathered them all up and lost myself in memories for the remainder of the day.

I ended up with a small enveloped stuffed to the brim with memories-of-my-aunt to give to her family and the gift of a day immersed in said memories. It was a most pleasant and memorable way to spend an afternoon. At the end of it all, I tied a yellow ribbon around the overstuffed envelope and smiled quietly to myself as the lyrics of "Tie a Yellow Ribbon" wafted through my mind. "I'm comin' home, I've done my time..." - an apt and lyrical way to think of, as I quietly honored my aunt that day.

I was 'supposed to be in Edmonton' those days, so they were lost to me (in a productive family-book-project-kind-of-way) anyway. I feel that I invested my bonus time wisely.

Sometimes you simply need to 'bloom where you are planted'. I was transplanted within my very own home for a few days that I expected to be elsewhere. Home, the place that I most-want-to-be, has become a work-zone (as I continue to wade through the immense-ness of this Family Book Project) during this holiday. The gift of those unexpected days was a Cat Day with one of my most favorite felines in this world and a day invested in breathing in the day and immersing myself in the memories of laughter and joyous times spent with my aunt and her family. These weren't the 'blossoms' that I expected to find within those particular days but they were glorious in their own right and a most pleasant surprise.

Life is a little bit like taking a mixture of flower seeds and tossing them into the soil where you are standing. Some of those seeds lie dormant, others bloom immediately, there are a few weeds in the batch but the greatest gifts are those that you do not expect. The flowers that bloom on an overcast day are the best flowers of all.

Sprinkle those seeds generously. That which you need to find often appears right in your own back yard. Just keep looking...