You know that feeling of wonder you get when you experience a place for the first time? The sights and the sounds overwhelm your senses, and you are temporarily Dorothy in Oz. We have spent most of our time in Mexico for the last several years, and we just returned to Missouri this April to get our house there ready to sell. All our friends say with a sigh, "Ahhh you are living the dream." And I think we are. Although, those same friends might change their mind if they lived awhile in the tropics with no a/c, no hot water. and a one burner hot plate. That's the price of building or renovating in paradise!
Anyway, Dorothy is back in Kansas now as we return to our house in Missouri. But somehow it seems a little more like Oz. The pink dogwoods are in bloom, and my azaleas are in vibrant fuchsia dress. A carpet of pink cherry blossoms blanket the ground under our trees and the birds are singing so beautifully that I just have to close my eyes and soak it in. When I walk down our tree lined street that looks more like a park than a neighborhood, I get that feeling a foreigner gets when they visit some place exotic. I am giddy and gushing about how green and gorgeous everything is.
So whether I am in Mexico, the U.S. or some other corner of the universe I am looking with wonder at the beauty I find around every corner. I am learning there is magic in every moment if I look for it. ERRRRCK!! That is the brakes of my cheese-ball spill screeching to a halt. My beautiful Spring epiphany has come to a grim reality check spelled - HAY-FEVER or ALLERGIES or SINUS INFLAMMATION! The magic I am finding in this moment is that I still have my head on my shoulders after I have blown it off with a thousand tissues. I don't even usually have problems with my sinuses, but evidently this is a particularly brutal allergy season in good old Missouri. And so I am guzzling down my husband's homeopathic brew and sneaking in allergy pills, ibuprofen and blessed sleep. Wake me up when I have a plane ticket back to Mexico! Until then pass the tissue please.
