If only gold can stay

This morning I awoke to the most telling sunrise. Spectacular chards of gold laced in delicate flamingo feathers sat upon the tallest of treetops.

I could feel its warm glow from my bedroom window as it whispered, “Wake up…look at me…what do you see?”

What do I see, I asked myself.

I see the day, and even further, I see life; it calls to me to follow my heart, to love my children above all, to be a good person and reach out to people in need, to make even the smallest difference, for it won’t go unnoticed, and to love and appreciate the wonderful God who has given so many gifts.

It made me think of The Outsiders and Ponyboy with his sweet sensitivity – okay, so I had a huge crush on C. Thomas Howell watching that movie; what girl didn’t like one of them? Robert Frost’s poem “Nothing Gold Can Stay,” which he recites with great sincerity in the film, and Stevie Wonder’s song “Stay Gold” still leave me in tears.

To me the song is about the love of life and how wonderful and new it is when you’re young and carefree, when a parent who now may have passed or grown ill were with you playing, laughing and telling jokes, or a child, sibling or close friend that we may have lost, even a great love.

It’s about seizing the moments in our minds and hearts, and how vivid they can become, how fleeting they are and how much they are treasured.

Ladies, what do you see in these everyday miracles? Did you ever think to let nature tell you its secrets, help you along your path? If you listen closely, you will hear.

When you look up at the stars’ twinkle, do they not have something to say? The mildest breeze to the briskest of winds, the rising of the tide, the full moon, the blooming of a flower, the lines of an aged tree all carry with them lessons of the heart.

And then there are the animals we meet on our journeys who Native Americans believe teach us meaningful totems. Deer, one of my favorites, teaches “gentleness.” So when you come across these animals perhaps it’s for a reason, and you might want to look up why they have met with you.

I have a wonderful book given to us by my late mother-in-law, who cherished the beautiful and humane beliefs of Native Americans as well as the Eastern cultures. So if you have a question, I’d be happy to look it up for you, and I’m sure the internet is loaded with vast information.

In closing, it’s your day, your month, your year, your life. Looking back on memories and appreciating all they have to offer our past, our present and our future is what life is all about.

Yes, sometimes I see my life in a sunrise, in the everyday miracles of nature, in the animals I meet… and wish that those incandescent moments for you and for me could stay always…

Ciao Bella

Nothing Gold Can Stay

Nature’s first green is gold
Her hardest hue to hold
Her early leaf’s a flower
But only so an hour
Then leaf subsides to leaf
So Eden sank to grief
So dawn goes down to day
Nothing gold can stay

–Robert Frost

Posted by Janel M. Harrison on October 25, 2012. Filed under Columns,Girl-2-Girl,Opinion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry