I’m having kind of an ugly day so far. Well, it’s really not that bad—but I just got back from the Doctor after having some fairly significant lower back pain checked out. Most likely it’s an inflamed disc—pressing on a nerve which has resulted in my right leg going numb. Fun times. My back feels best when laying flat, so when I got home the first thing I did was just drop down in my yard—laying flat on my back. The weather is nice today—so why not be uncomfortable outside?
Here’s where the beauty kicks in. After about five minutes of staring up at the sky, watching the clouds—it hit me that I used to do this as a little boy. I’d do it for hours. I used to find a big tree—lay myself flat and “cloud watch”. My imagination would totally take over. Every cloud I saw was either a dinosaur, a face, house, animal, car, you name it. I would see these things in the clouds. So as I was laying there flat out—with a bum back and numb leg, all I could do was remember how much I loved doing this as a kid.
And now that I’m back at the laptop (feeling a little better now with the help of a few meds)—it’s making me think about how this tiny lesson applies to life. It’s always best find the beauty in ugly situations. Or at least maybe for the little ones. Some situations are of course hopeless—at least in the here and now. But for those of us who are fortunate enough to be spared the worst the world has to offer—maybe it’s our responsibility to always see the beauty in our lesser times.
Or to not over analyze this too much—today I made a choice. That choice brought back some wonderful childhood memories. And although my body is feeling older—my mind is feeling young.
