DAY; NIGHT; MORNING. The stage of a story.

I haven’t written a simple story in a while. Life hasn’t felt very simple. There’s much vying for my attention every day, and if I don’t stop and look around, I’ll miss this.

I’ll miss simply being present, not the one going through the motions, but the one who notices from the seat of self. The one behind the eyes, questioning whether I’m doing what makes me happy, wondering what’s honestly the point in it all; I don’t want to take this lightly. But perhaps that’s all there is to do.

Gratitude brings me back into the seat of self.

Gratitude helps me see that no matters what I’m going through, however I feel, this moment is novel. I’ve never experienced this second, this morning, this day; I never will again.

The pain, the feeling that there’s a burden to do more, the joy and immeasurable love, it’s all original. It’s mid-April; am I noticing the season change?

The smell of spring pervades the Earth, the warmth that sticks to you as you walk, like crystals of salt dancing in the air. The flowers make me stop in awe. Colors can be so good. What would spring be without its colors? What would flowers be without their distinguishable shades?

Life contained within fields of monochrome. What colors burst from underneath each petal? What unseen colors do each of us possess?

Light, subdued blue and pale pink, colors of the Earth, of life, of this time that comes but once a year — it always has, yet we’re seldom the same when we see the flowers bloom again. A year gone by; sunflowers stem alongside verdant cacti, the colors of a new dawn.

I look up and all I see is the expanse of silver-blue sky. I look into ceaseless space and boundless dreams and feel I can reach out and grasp the stars as if we’re one, collected from the same source, the same blinding light, energy that longs to shine.

From a distance, we do.

How do we know if we’re doing too much? Instead of watching the budding flowers bloom and grow and open, signifying coming life and change, I’m afraid. I can’t only see them die.

I’ll feel as if I’ve died too, unable to be there, consumed by keeping up with myself — but who’s trying to keep up, and with whom? I’m afraid to watch them die and have missed it. I can’t watch my spirit wane. I won’t.

I open my eyes to the sound of chattering birds; I give thanks for another day.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

For another day to move with grace. For another day to change a life, even my own; to make it slow and stop with fallen words dropped from my pen like water into a bucket.

The rhythmic sound brings me back to life; the gentle press of the pen against paper, nearing the end of my journal that contains a mosaic of memories from the past year.

Scribbled down are times like this, when all I really needed was an early morning, an empty page, and a full heart to spill.

I say thank you in the morning, but do I really feel it? I do right now and I hope to always and forever. Thank you, for the dawn of spring, the dawn of day, the dawn of life.

Thank you, that I’m able to see any color at all in this beautiful world. The darkening and withering of the sunny blue flowers is just as real as the going of light from the sky on a well-lived day.

Last night I watched the color leave the sky from somewhere new. I drove to find some change, space within my head; what I found was so much more.

I found a page to turn as day gave way to night and filled me with thoughts of joy and gratitude, for where I’ve been, where I am — this place I’ve never seen where flowers bloom and tell of changing tides, of where I’m going.

Where we’re going together.

I found a state of peace by the edge of the sea. I stood atop a sliver of land, sometimes there, often not, where waves crash against the rocks and turn them into smooth stones to stand upon, dark blue now, as if they’ve taken on the identity of the deep and endless night.

Dark blue for miles, made of individual stones. Such is life.

It feels good to tell a simple story, only a day, a night, a morning come and gone. To tell it is the best I’ve felt in a while. I lay down my thoughts like a breath of fresh air.

Originally published with the Medium publication Scribe