Good Morning

If ever there was a time of year when it could be said the air smells sweet, it is in early June.  Tangles of wild rose and honeysuckle bloom along fence lines and roadsides here.  Mock orange dapples shaded spots with white.  Sweet peas climb trellises and walls.  Wisteria twines itself wherever it can, its perfumed flowers hanging in bunches like grapes. Scotch broom runs riot on open hillsides, punctuated by the white, purple, and mauve blooms of sweet rocket and, on farms and in flowerbeds all over the valley, lavender is beginning to bloom.

There is a great sweep of lavender outside my office windows and with every breath of breeze that makes its way up the hill from the straits below, its scent is carried across my desk.  I pause, close my eyes and draw it in, making a memory that will stay with me long after the blooms have faded.

It is one of those mornings when the sun's promise of heat later in the day is given in a fine silver haze that turns the surface of the water into living, moving metal, and the coastal mountains into receding layers of ever-paler blue.  Transparent wisps of cloud sit at the edges of the round, pale bowl of the sky.

On the lawn below my window, a papa quail is loudly proclaiming his presence to the world, all the while being studiously ignored by the small brown bunny nibbling grass nearby.  A single gull, glowing white in the morning's silvery light circles over the water, lazily riding the thermals that rise up the the side of our steep hill.

The day brings all its usual concerns and busy-ness but for just this momen, I am setting them aside, breathing in the quiet and the air's sweet perfume, and enjoying a moment of peace.  All is well with my soul.

I hope that, however busy your Friday may be, and whatever cares you may be carrying in your heart, the day brings you some moments of peace and contentment too.  Have a joyful day.