Wildflower Writes

Photo by  Tim Mossholder  on  Unsplash “What is that?” I thought, as I spotted a white square-shaped blob on my driver’s side window. “It looks like bird…” It’s January in northern Indiana. Don’t most birds (except “friendly” Canadian geese) fly south for the winter? If I had wings, I would find somewhere warmer to live! So I looked up, and sure enough, about 30 feet above my usual parking spot, nestled in the winter-bare branches of a hardwood tree, is a giant, scraggly bird’s nest. What are the chances? Sometimes it feels like we have particularly unlucky days or weeks or months or years (2020, anyone?) Like those days when you’re running late, and have to stop for gas, and spill your coffee, and someone cancels on you, and it’s not even 9 am? You start ruminating on all the reasons it’s been a bad day, and when something else happens, you add it to the list. There’s something called confirmation bias, where instead of being objective, you look for information tha...

For Christmas, my mom received a beautiful copper sculpture of a butterfly from their exchange student. When asked, Linh said she just formed the copper wire into a butterfly. Artistic talent like that amazes me (and makes me a little jealous). If you gave me a bunch of copper wire, I might be able to make a two-dimensional flower. Maybe. So, if I wanted something beautiful created, and all I had was a ball of copper wire (do they come in balls?), I would hand it over to my foster sister and ask her to create it. I simply do not have the ability. I'm seeing that my life is a lot like a tangled mess of copper wire. I don't know what to do with it, or how to form something useful or beautiful out of it. So I've decided that I need to hand it over to the Master Creator, and let him create something amazing out of it. If something wonderful results from my life, it will only be because I was willing to submit to Him.  If I keep trying to make it on my own, I'm sure it...

Do you remember your first lost tooth?  Do you remember wiggling and wiggling it, maybe before it was even loose?  Did you ever go to extreme measures, like pliers or a string tied to doorknob?  My son’s first tooth is loose.  He’s in no hurry for it to come out, although he played with it all through the church service this morning.  He first noticed it while dining out a week ago.  He complained of a sore tooth while biting into a slice of pizza.  “Is it loose?” I asked.  He wiggled it, and sure enough, it could bend to a 45 degree angle.  At 6 1/2 years old, it had been a long time coming.    His older sister was adorable.  She put her arm around him, and with a knowing smile, asked to see and touch the premier tooth.  Apparently, her cousin reacted the same way when his younger sister had her first loose tooth.  She’s only 5 1/2, but lost her third tooth today.  It was barely hanging on to begin wi...

Fox is coming out with a show called More to Love . It’s a version of The Bachelor with plus size participants. Although I am glad that this is a reality show with large women that is not trying to make them lose weight to be more attractive, the ads show women who talk about how they just want to feel beautiful, loved, and wanted. So they decide to compete with 19 other women for the love of a stranger on national TV? Ladies, ladies, ladies! First of all, the ladies they profiled were already beautiful. They don’t need a man’s approval to feel that way. Secondly, everyone wants to feel loved, but if you don’t feel lovable, you’ll never accept love from someone else. Our society is messed up. In America, women strive for thin and busty with tanned, clear, wrinkle-free skin. The few women who are able to meet that standard go to great lengths to achieve it, including surgically altering their bodies. Why do we let a few magazine publishers and TV producers determine what we sho...

Dirt. Sunshine. Children’s laughter. It was a perfect recipe for starting a garden. I don’t grow things. I can’t even keep cut flowers alive for more than a day. I bought one of those already planted strawberry plants once. Somehow, it grew mold. And not one strawberry. My friend doesn’t grow things either. But she rents from a farmer who gave her a huge area to use for a garden. She invited a few of her friends to plant stuff. I bought some seed packets on a whim at the grocery store. I’m not even sure it’s anything I’ll eat if it grows, like yellow beans and a kind of lettuce I’ve never heard of. My friend was smart. She bought tomato plants, so she doesn’t have to make sure the seeds actually germinate. She inadvertently bought 48 plants, however. It’s good thing tomatoes are so versatile and healthy for you! I have fond memories of “helping” in the garden. My mom had this little plot in the backyard. She always bordered it with marigolds. She planted rhubarb, whic...

Pink roses and white tapers adorned the front of the church sanctuary. The decorations highlighted the room itself, with an ornate plaster ceiling, tall stained glass windows, and solid, wooden pews. The people ensconced within the pews fit into the scheme: beautiful, young, dressed in summery dresses and colorful dress shirts. They whispered and laughed in anticipation. Even though I was feeling rather ambivalent about the affair, the lilting notes of the piano and the beautifully simple decorations lent themselves to a genuine romantic atmosphere, despite my sore backside from a 6-hour car ride and the fact I knew absolutely no one in the room except my husband. The groomsmen, dressed in gold vests and ties, waited in a line at the front, the groom’s smile wide and expectant. Three tiny tuxedoed ring-bearers trotted in, followed by two tiny flower girls, serenaded by the loud protests of the third would-be flower girl. Six attendants, sheathed in shimmering pink, hair perfectly coiff...

“Life is a gift, and it offers us the privilege, opportunity, and responsibility to give something back by becoming more.” - Tony Robbins When someone as beautiful, talented, and blessed as Natasha Richards passes on, we all pause. Our hearts break for young sons, a devoted husband, and other family and friends. We wonder what plans they had for after their ski trip, for next year, for the future. We wonder about the last mundane conversation with her husband was about before she fell. It makes me wonder… if I died tomorrow… what would people remember about me? Have I made good with the gift of life given to me? Have I used the talents and knowledge developed in my lifetime for the best use? Have I, as Henry David Thoreau said, “...live[d] deep and suck[ed] out all the marrow of life… live[d] so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life… cut a broad swath and shave[d] close… drive[n] life into a corner, and reduce[d] it to its lowest terms...”? Life is so precio...

In honor of St. Patrick’s Day, I wanted to give you the words of Kermit the Frog (special thanks to http://www.guntheranderson.c om ): It’s not that easy being green Having to spend each day the color of the leaves When I think it could be nicer being red, or yellow or gold Or something much more colorful like that It’s not easy being green It seems you blend in with so many other ordinary things And people tend to pass you over ‘cause you’re Not standing out like flashy sparkles in the water Or stars in the sky But green’s the color of Spring And green can be cool and friendly-like And green can be big like an ocean, or important Like a mountain, or tall like a tree When green is all there is to be It could make you wonder why, but why wonder why Wonder, I am green and it’ll do fine, it’s beautiful And I think it’s what I want to be Next time you wish you could be smarter, or taller, or more creative, or faster, or stronger… take a lesson from our little green friend. Even ...