......revelations of one woman's reality of life, love, and all things hopeful...

Wednesday, March 24, 2010

stealing buttercups







I'm sorry. I just could not control myself.


It happened today when I got home from work as I made the daily walk to the end of Beasley Lane to retrieve my mail.

I saw it.


It was the most beautiful patch of buttercups I've ever seen. Right in the middle of a green pasture full of rolling hills. Right next to a dilapidated house with a rusty tin roof.


I stood there at my mailbox and took in the view of those vibrant flowers, and I just had to get a little closer. There wasn't a fence to keep me out, sooooo....what the hay, right? I tromped through the green pasture until I stood there in the midst of the flowers. There were 2 varieties of daffodils in at least 4 original rows with many other random, wandering clusters scattered about.
They were gorgeous.


Gorgeous.


That's when I lost it. I just started picking buttercups as fast as I could. I felt like I needed them in a vase on my kitchen table now, and the urgency was almost more than I could stand.

I know...
technically I was stealing buttercups. I'm sorry. Sue me.

When I had collected as many buttercups my hands could hold, I was was stopped dead in my tracks by the up-close-and-personal-look at the old house that neighbored the beautiful flowerbed. I see the old house every day when I go to the mailbox, but I've never observed it quite like this.


Who once lived in the house and planted the four rows of buttercups? What was her story? Did she peer out from the bedroom window in the early mornings and admire the flower beds? Perhaps she, too, picked them in early spring to brighten her home. As I stared at the old house, I realized that she had planted those buttercup bulbs years ago and, whether knowingly or not, she planted something that had lasted for generations to enjoy. The bulbs not only lasted, but flourished and multiplied.


By the looks of the old house, it's been there on that land for generations and left empty and unattended for years and years. The live flowers, however, have by far outlasted the materials of the house.


I want to be that woman. Now more than ever as I prepare to begin a new life as a wife (and hopefully someday as a mother), I want to plant seeds that will last for generations. Perhaps there will be some literal flowerbeds planted, but I hope more importantly there will be lives affected positively, people who know real love, and more than even this...


Stealing buttercups, at least for today, was a good thing.


I must look for life's buttercups more often.
And now, to quote my friend BamaSlammer, this is my blog for today.