Overwhelmed with life . . .

Overwhelmed with life . . .

     If you clicked on this post thinking you were going to read something from a depressed state of mind, you are not. Not today. But I am glad that I got your attention. I am having what I call one of my unexpected genuine happy days. It’s something that just happens. I never have been able to explain it completely, but I keep trying. The best description I have found that suits my understanding and maybe gives some credence to it is, it is as if God walks up to me and just puts His arms around me and holds me close.
     I have been reading this morning, an activity that I already find enjoyable. It is a book written by Anne LaBastille. Woodswoman – Living alone in the Adirondack Wilderness. Now you might ask why in the world would a noted couch peach, (I like Peach better than potato) be reading a book about hiking and building a cabin in the woods? First, because I can and second that is the wonder of reading. I can READ about all the things I can not do. I have been walking in the splendor of cool lush forests. Canoeing across gold-encrusted lakes, watching otters splash and bob about in pristine rivers and have envisioned stumbling upon a beaver busily gnawing through the base of a soft Birch tree – all from the comfort of my recliner.
     I’ve smelled the fresh brewed coffee and almost tasted flapjacks made in the early morning. And mostly I have marveled at the tenacity of some people who think nothing of hiking 15 miles in all phases of weather and still have the strength and mental prowess to make camp. I would be sitting sucking my thumb and blubbering, “I want to go home” if actually doing all that. But reading it fills me with pure delight. Reading about sleeping in rain soaked tents and sleeping bags, suffering burns, blisters and bug bites and loving every minute of it. I wonder what was the DNA that got planted in them that I never in a million years could think to have. Although, I did get the fishing gene. I could fish for hours in a rocking boat. Come home sunburned, tired and still have energy to fry the hushpuppies, make coleslaw, slice sweet Vidalia onions along side cold crunchy pickles and brew up a pitcher of sweet tea while the ex-husband fried the fish out in the yard.
     Even though I switched to sipping a cup of hot chocolate, while I continue reading, I know it was more than the coco. That overwhelming feeling of pure happiness with life. Publishers Clearing House did not knock at my door, I did not win the lottery, no book agent e-mailed me begging me to publish with them, but tears just sprang up from somewhere deep within me as an expression of thanksgiving for where I find myself at this stage in my life. I am okay. I have everything I need, I live in a safe environment, my health is not tip-top but I am breathing and taking nourishment.  I can see, hear and still having feeling in my toes and fingers. Pain in various parts are to a minimum today and above all; I am loved by a God that knows exactly where I am and what I doing and made an extra sensory reach for me to let me know He is with me and life is good.
     Can’t ask for better than that. I wish this for everyone today. Maybe you need to slow down, get quiet and ask the Lord to surprise you with something similar. I am so thankful when this happens at unexpected times. Mainly because it is the initiative of God toward me. It’s His decision to touch the strings of my heart to let me know he sees me and I am not alone.
     Maybe this time the trigger was reading of all the wonders of this world that we can’t explain. I keep flipping the book over in my hand looking at this woman’s picture on the cover. Simply amazing the things that she accomplished on her own; the people in her world with like-minded ways. Trappers, hunters, lumberjacks, a licensed guide, a hermit squirreled away in the Adirondack Mountains. All people that I would never know existed had she not taken the time to write it all down.
     I used to read around 10 books a week, I had them in my bedroom, the kitchen, in my car (yes, I am one of those who reads at red lights) in my purse, etc. Today my eyes do not allow me the privilege of reading quite so many. I think I have three going right now. It is like having a box of chocolates on my table. I hardly put one down to pick up the other when the last one calls me back to continue on reading from its rich velvety chocolate goodness of wordy descriptions.
     Sometimes I am literally ‘full’ feeling when I get to the end of a book that I could not put down. Then the inevitable happens. I have to WRITE! I have to open one of my many files and let my own places, characters and hopefully, chocolately goodness flow onto the pages. Sometimes I think it is just what I call my ‘seatwork’. Giving me something to occupy my days. I still hope that bestseller story is rolling around somewhere in my writing DNA and it will find its way to paper. In the mean time, today could not be better. It makes up for the ones that are not so good that we all have from time to time.  They come too. They creep up and surprise you but with a totally different outcome. The tears are not from joy. But they fall under the, “and this too will pass” category.
I hope you get a hug today . . .