Keep Your Face To The Sun
It is not sustainable for us to be thriving all the time. We may go through months, seasons, maybe even years where we feel all we do is work, and reap zero. I don’t know about you, but my brain’s default is black and white thinking. If I am not thriving, I am failing.
This thought pattern only gets nourished by the go-go- go nature of NYC. And like it or not, I have been a victim of black and white thinking this month.
Today, I left work and took two hours to wander through Central Park with a friend.
We had no agenda but to catch up, take in the beauty of spring, and feel the sunshine on our skin. We crossed the Bow Bridge, saw hundreds of people sunning in Sheep’s Meadow, and then stopped and smelled the flowers in the Shakespeare Garden. There, I noticed a handful of the most beautiful tulips...still closed. Their color was intoxicating, but it simply was not time for them to bust open.
Tulips around them were beginning to bloom and flourish. Other tulips faced the sun and spread out. It didn’t make the closed up tulips any less of a tulip...any less beautiful or worthy or tulip-y. In fact, I found the closed buds more interesting.
It is not sustainable for us to be thriving all the time.
I have referred to my current season of life as hibernation. A season of working, adding tools to my artist tool kit, taking class, and keeping my head down. And I have had a lot of down days in this season. But when I look to nature, I see that there will be a day where blossoming occurs. A tulip won’t stay closed forever. Winter always turns to spring. To anyone feeling the lethargy that accompanies a season of hibernation, I see you. I send all the love to you. I am with you.
The time to bloom is coming, and it isn’t out choice when that blossoming will occur.