Drastic measures

I woke this morning to an amiable bird chorus.  I don’t know if it was the official welcome committee, or if they just can’t help themselves, this singing to greet the dawn.  Their tune new to me, unlike any of the birds we have in the Pacific Northwest, one sounding like a junior high boy whistling at the object of his not-so-secret crush.

I am here, in Antigua, Guatemala, the site of my Dentist’s chair.  (Thankfully, my Dentist is also here.  It helps if they are in the same vicinity.)  But that is later today.

Dental work aside, I come to Guatemala to find a place where I am not easily derailed by distractions. Although it takes a couple days to let the silt–stirred up from busyness and hurry–to settle. As soon as I arrived Saturday night, I checked to see if I had wi-fi (what’s relaxation and inner peace without a wi-fi connection?), in order to check my website, to still if it was still working.

My site has been going through a five month overhaul, which is enough time to reinforce my irrational fear that the cyber-world operates in much the same way as the God of my youth — if you admit to, or claim, one iota of happiness, it is His job to take it away.  After all, my Sunday School teachers taught me, “life’s lessons are to be learned through suffering, and happiness will await us on the other side of the Pearly Gates.”  What can I say?  They may have been short on roughage in their diet.

So.  With that kind of enriching and heartening education coursing through my childhood blood, there are times when I am surprised, literally, when something goes right.  (You know the old adage: Optimists are just people without all the facts.)

My website store is working?

Really?

But how is that possible?

These pollutants of the heart require immediate attention and in some cases, drastic measures.  So I walked straight away a del supermercado for fresh sun flowers. I needed three or four vases to put around the house.  (The photo above is from my garden.  I have photos from here, but have not yet learned how to upload them.  When I do, I’ll post them.  It’ll be therapy during dental surgery recovery.)

If I keep a green bough in my heart, then the singing bird will come. Chinese proverb

The smile and presence of the flowers remind me that there is life to be lived. . .now. . .long before we see the Pearly Gates.

Here is my secret. It is very simple.

It is only with the heart that one can see rightly;

What is essential is invisible to the eye. Antoine de Saint Exupery