TWO PINES

"Between every two pines is a doorway to a new world." ~John Muir

Crossroads, pathways, straight, right or left.  Stopped, stuck dead in our tracks.  I have stopped dead in my tracks for way too long. Immobile, stuck, trapped, taken advantage of, running in circles trying to please everyone and essentially pleasing no one! Least of all myself. 

Last night I laid in bed with my tv remote, my cell (fully charged), my IPad, two dogs and visions of my house being blown away by a severe storm that was promoted and forecast on every television channel imagineable.  Thunder and lightening and anticipating of the worst.  "Take cover!"  "Go to a place of safety!"  I called a friend.  She was also in the path of this doomsday storm.  She said, "I am scared."  I said, "Me too."  We talked and I tried to preoccupy the space between weather updates with idle conversations, signifying nothing ~yet passing time. 

But just thirty minutes later the storm had moved rapidly to the northwest and there was a clear sky, no rain and no base ball size hail!  So go the storms of our lives.  Sometimes they pass quickly and sometimes there is a barrage of debris thrown in our pathway.  With a shovel and a determination most of this will pass quickly and life will begin again, only this time in a new way.

So the question is do we stay stuck, waiting out the storm, or admit we are scared and take a step between the two pine trees in anticipation of discovering the doorway to a new world?  I am not one to stay stuck forever.  Although sometimes it seems like forever when I am in the middle of turmoil, chaos, disfunction and panic in the darkness.

Fear has always been that hidden message that prefaces most things in this lifetime.  Fear of failure, fear of not being who you are expected to be, fear of this and fear of that.  We all endure it and tramp through it.  But what if we just wait out the storm and anticipate the beautiful things that await as we pass through the two pines and find a brand new world waiting for us. 

This is the first day of Spring!  And with it comes a new outlook for this lady.  Anticipation of great things to come.  Time to clear out the closets, the draws, and the cobwebs stuck in my head and heart.  Time to take a breath and mean it.  Inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale...and leave the sticky stuff to someone else.  I have waited, patiently and not so patiently for the darkness to disappear and the threat of a severe storm to pass.  But pass it has, and I see a strong light within me that says what will be, will be, concerning the past.  The future lies ahead and is bright and inviting.  There is always that light if we look hard enough for it.  And maybe, just maybe that light is hidden beyond the doorway between two pine trees.