Pocket Guide to Grace: Lesson 76

When you find that the world is spinning, hold onto something stable and stop turning yourself around.

drunken daffodils

The daffodils clearly had also had too much to drink during the night.  They stood slouched and hung over the puddles and the sopping grass.  I felt comfort in their kinship, their rebellious vibrancy .  Though oppressively loaded with the evenings's storm, these daffodils were shining in chorus, singing gleaming hymns despite the fog, despite the burdensome grey of the morning.

I had no idea why I was awake.  The sun must of come up, I figured, though I couldn't see it.  I couldn't recall sleeping, but I also couldn't recall not sleeping.  As I pieced together the evening, I became pretty sure that I had still been awake and pushing words through my whiskey seasoned vocal chords long after the bars put us to the streets.  I was with the boy again, probably saying words I'd regret if i ever remembered them, probably talking myself right into bits of sleep caught on his shoulder.  But now I was awake, disoriented, (perhaps broken-hearted), and hanging out with slouched and singing daffodils.  We were all still intoxicated.

I had been sitting on my back steps for at least an hour, but I wouldn't go in until I had found whatever there was to be found in the morning.  The knuckles on my index fingers were smudged with my eye makeup, and all of my fingernails were black-tipped and gritty.  I  cleaned the salt-spots off of my glasses with my dress, and gave up trying to remember the evening.

The weight of the air comforted my weighted heart.  The fog in the back yard forgave the fog in my mind.  The daffodils seemed to say "Hey, we've all had it rough.  Be still, and shine."

This was the first day of spring.  Soon after, my life and the magnolia tree above the daffodils exploded into bloom.