My Companion and me . . .

I am drinking a second cup of coffee letting my eyes linger on the view out the sliding glass doors across from my chair that I strategically placed in my small living room. Standing over on the top of a small knoll is my lovely friend, Tree. I call her Tree because she is one and today it seems appropriate to do so. She looks like she needs reminding of the fact that she is a tree and that it is indeed February.      She looks confused. It looks like she has gone to her foliage closet wondering what to wear. She has tossed off the green leaves. Abandoned long ago the bright smock she wore for Autumn and now stands, well . . . you know . . . naked as the day she was planted. Now looking out the door at her I had to get my binoculars to be sure I was seeing what she had adorned herself with this morning. She is wearing a moss colored lightweight coat.
     “Tree? Are you going somewhere?” I asked her. Not getting a response (smile with me I really am sane) I took another look and sure enough I think she still had some unkempt branches in her hair tossed about by the rain and wind. Then I realized it is perhaps a mossy bathrobe and not a coat. After all the weather has been too warm for her to be dressed in the thick fluffy coat she worn last winter. So this one seems like a good choice for today. Green is definitely her color.
     But she looks puzzled. Even a bit sad. Definitely uncertain about what she is supposed to be doing. Should she be sleeping? Should she be thinking about new leaves? Should she remain dormant? Or should she just go ahead and open up her roots and bust a move before Spring? Instead she is unable to sleep so she put on her bathrobe and is having coffee with me.
     I think I understand my friend, Tree. Sometimes I wonder what I am supposed to be doing.  Some days I know the routine of coffee, write, do a few dishes, write, vacuum or laundry. Go for the mail, do some writing.  The writing is both my pleasure and my problem. And like Tree I wondered what I am supposed to be doing with it.
     In a conversation with my artsy sister, her talent is drawing, she said, “I can’t not draw but sometimes I wonder why I bother. No one sees it but me. I wish someone cared about what I draw and even if they didn’t like it at least it would be seen by some one other than me.”
   I completely understood her feelings. So, because Tree and I are having a confusing day, I am going to show you a picture my sister drew for her church. They happily used it for a program. I think she said they even made copies for the children to color. And why wouldn’t they it is good!
     When she told me where I could find it online I could hear the happiness in her voice. Because of the lack of encouragement we got as children, not just lack of encouragement but actually a steady diet of discoursing remarks about wherever we did artistically, we both have wondered what and where we would have ended up if we had been encouraged to pursue our talents. It’s hard loving to do something for which there doesn’t seem to be a place to display it.
     Maybe God will let my sister do a few sunrises or heaven-blue fluffy cloud mornings in heaven when she gets there. And maybe I’ll get to write something that Angels will read and rejoice over. But right now, Tree and I are having coffee, I’ll post my sister’s picture and I’ll share this blog. So all in all, life is good.