Life is Good

I'm not a relentlessly nauseatingly cheerful Pollyanna kinda person, but I am a positive thinking person (for the most part - leaving today's political climate of hate aside).  

Negative people, for whatever their reasons, wear me out and I choose to not surround myself with an over abundance of negativity.  That's not to say I don't have compassion, and people who don't understand where I'm coming from with all this still won't understand if I try to explain it, so I'm not going to bother.

Yesterday was a good day.  

I met one of my former bosses, who is a dear friend, for coffee.  For a couple of hours we chatted, and we laughed.   (Thank you, Ozzie)

By spending most days quite contentedly in Meat Camp and being as reclusive as I tend to be, I forget just how delightful and refreshing coffee and laughter with a good friend can be.

Top that with a manicure, a pedicure, a milkshake, picking up a new book at the Post Office (Thank you, MG), coming home to a sweet, cute husband who makes me laugh and who loves me, along with a fluffy little dog who smiles when she sees me, and I am reminded - life is good.

I'm thankful that I know that.

Clara Brooks' poem is, on the surface, quite simplistic, but the lyricism as well as its message speaks to me.

 Life's Mystery

Poet: Clara M. Brooks

"Laugh, and the world laughs with you";
Weep, and the world weeps, too:
'Tis all as you take it, brother;
You pave your own pathway through —

Pave it with woes and sorrows,
With sighs and drops of grief,
Or with onyx stones of gladness
And ruby smiles of relief;

Pave it with sunshine-golden
Or densest hues of night,
With storm-clouds dark of anguish
Or silver stars of light.

Pause not to mourn o'er the failures
You made on yesterday;
The while you are sadly weeping,
The present you trifle away.

The smoothest and brightest diamond
Was once but the roughest stone,
And the rose of rarest splendor
From the meanest sod has grown.

Thus the deepest and richest blessing
Comes oft from the bitterest woe,
And a life of heavenly beauty
From the lowliest place may grow.

The darkest hour of the night-time
Betokens the coming dawn,
And the brightest and warmest sunshine
Comes after the rain is gone.

Would you but gather roses,
And shun the pricking thorn?
Have all thy dawnings cheerful
With never a cloudy morn?

Ah! life is whate'er you make it:
Bid sadness and grief depart,
And the world shall be filled with music,
Begun in thy trusting heart;

Rejoice, and the world around you
The cheeriest smile will wear;
Bow 'neath thy heavy burdens,
And the world is filled with care.

Then forth to thy duty, brother,
Nor falter for wind or tide.
What matter how dark the storm-clouds?
There's always a brighter side.

"Laugh, and the world laughs with you";
Weep, and the world weeps, too:
'Tis all as you take it, brother;
You pave your own pathway through.