We are all in this together

It’s a mild Sunday morning

So warm I’m doing my morning meditation on the front porch.

I’m appreciating the extra hour I slept last night due to turning our clocks back, ending daylight savings.

I’m willing the delivery of the Sunday NY Times with my mind. It never arrived last Sunday, the first week of my subscription. “Not to worry” they tell me; they are on it.

There are still many leaves on neighbors’ trees and lawns. Lovely views.

One neighbor steps onto his porch to trim his beard in the natural light of day with a hand-held mirror. I assume he’s getting ready for church.

Another couple look like they’re preparing for a pot luck or what we used to call a “covered dish” – a meal at church after the service – carefully placing their casseroles in the trunk of their car.

Church bells, or more accurately canned music, begins to fill the air, seemingly announcing that it’s time to get to church. There are 6 churches within walking distance. The sounds are pretty although not as joyful to me as real church bells that ring every day in Italy…

I look down the street…a slice of Americana. Used to living in major cities, I once commented on how I can’t believe I now live in suburbia. I was corrected that I live in a small town, not a suburb.

I smell a faint hint of chocolate. The highlight of living in this particular small town is that it is the home to a chocolate factory!

All depending on how the wind blows, we either have the decadent smell of chocolate in the air or when the wind blows the other way, we instead experience the unappealing scent of manure in the air, from the local Amish farms.

Chocolate vs. manure. Maybe that’s a metaphor for life…it’s all about which way the wind blows.

We don’t have control over how the wind blows…only how we navigate those winds.

I hope you have a chocolate day!