Just...Take A Breath

I decided to do a check of the camellia buds in the front yard today but before I did, something on the white camellia bush growing at the southeast corner of the front porch caught my eye. 

See it? 

I am thrilled. The first camellia japonica to bloom this season. And it is beautiful. 
There are more buds on different plants showing color. I took this picture and yes, perhaps that bud is blushing. 

It looks a little nipply, doesn't it? In a very lovely way. You can actually see the petals on their way to unfolding. 
Every year I apologize for how many pictures I post of the camellias. 
This year, though, I think I will unashamedly and unapologetically post as many as I think are worth posting because if we don't need camellias now, when will we ever? Let's wallow in all the beauty we can. Let's roll in it, inhale it, kiss it, love it and hold it close. Let's stop and notice every interesting shadow cast, every window that has sun shining through it making glory.

Let's notice every new leaf, every genuine smile, every heartfelt hug, every hand we're privileged to hold.
Let's look up to see winter's bare limbs against the sky, clouds, stars, and the moon. Let us stop to admire and appreciate the things we love but see so often we've forgotten to look. 
Let us truly stop and listen to the chirp and trill and chip and staccato hammering of the birds around us. Their calls, their songs, their cries, and whistles, according to their kind. 
Let us reread the books which have brought us pleasure in the past and which could bring us pleasure again and books we've never read before which can open up different worlds and thoughts and knowledge to us. Let us listen to the music we love and which may have saved us before or made us want to dance or allowed us to cry when we needed to or filled our entire soul until it soared, as nothing but music can do. Let us flirt with babies at the store, let us tell their mothers how beautiful those babies are. You will be telling the truth. All babies are beautiful, especially to their mothers. 
Let us see the beauty in the things we do and create whether a poem or a garden or a soup or a feeling of peace in our homes or a potholder or a watercolor or a clean sink. 
Let us look into the face of a loved one with enough attention and intention to see the beauty there.

Let's try these things, okay? And of course I am speaking to myself here. I flat out do not feel well today. No energy at all, regular pains and aches magnified as if by fever although I have no fever. But that one white camellia, that one pink bloom about to unfurl, have given me a tiny sliver of hope and my god, isn't that what we all need so badly now? And we're not going to get it from the news or social media. I know that nothing I've said here is going to really make anyone's life less stressful. It is not going to cure anyone's depression. It is not going to ease a burden or give anyone the strength to carry on but every second of the day we do NOT spend on reading, thinking, talking about...all those things...is a second of relief from it all and just that tiny mote of a bit of something that is positive, that is light-filled, that is not fearful and painful is not nothing. 
It is something. I swear to you, it is. 

Just a thought. 

Sleep well. 

Love...Ms. Moon