I think I may have hit a major turning
point in my life. On my walk to work yesterday morning, I literally
stopped and smelled the roses.
Whoever it was who wrote that song back
in the 70s (Mac Davis?) would be so proud.
After the bizarre year that we've been
through, and after a couple of days when most (if not all) of the
remaining lilac bus and dried up and withered away, I started to
think. I started to think about priorities, and I started to think
about the fleeting nature of time, both short-term and long-term. I
mean, here we are, almost the middle of June already. That means
there’s what, three months (at the most) of nice weather left
before the arrival of the crap we deal with the rest of the year.
That means we have three months (at the most) to do things like go to
the beach, and to do things like stopping and smelling the roses.
One of my neighbors has several bushes
of white roses in their front yard, and over the past few days,
they’ve started to bloom. I’ve walked past them many times in
those past few days, always catching the lingering scent that rose
bushes leave in their immediate area, but until yesterday, I hadn’t
actually stop and stuck my nose deep inside one of them.
So I did. And I’m happy to report
that I’m glad I did.
Now, roses will never replace lilacs as
the greatest smell on the planet. I just don’t think that’s
possible. But I do know that like lilacs roses aren’t around for
long. They bloom, they smell nice, and then they die. If you don’t
sniff them when you have the chance, then that chance is blown.
There’s nothing you can do about. You have to sniff them while you
can.
And as hokey as it seems, that may also
be a perfect metaphor for things like getting out and enjoy the
warmth and the sunshine while we can. While it may seem like we have
a lot of time to head out and take part in all of our favorite summer
activities, that window of time is actually quite brief. I mean,
think of how quickly 2020 (an admittedly bizarre year) has gone by so
far. The year’s almost half over, after all, even though it
doesn’t seem like it. Now divide that by quickness by half,
because if we have (at most) three months before all traces of
summer are gone, that means that we’ve already lived through a span
of time this year that’s twice as long as our “summer” has
remaining. If the first six months of the year have gone by in the
blink of an eye, what will the next three months seem like?
The start of the blink of an eye?
That’s one of the reasons I’m glad
I stopped and sniffed the roses yesterday. It’s something I
should’ve been doing more of this year, and it’s something that
I’ll make sure I do more of as the summer goes on. As far as the
going to the beach is concerned; well, let’s just that's one of the
things on top of my list to do today.
After all, there’s not a lot of time
to waste on that matter!
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