Written by Ordinary Extra – May 25, 2023. Fresh Start.
Is it me, or do long days seem to run together with more long days? Are long days just long because I am overtired, or are the days just really long? Either way, the day started cool, windy, and bright. Clean. Clear. Crisp. A fresh start.
The breeze was stiff and the air was cool, like it had been cleaned just for today.
The flags I saw were waving in the wind and part of me just wanted to breakaway.
It was a cool start to the day with the fresh air, the wind, and the bright sun. The storm from yesterday had passed and the its pull to the sea dragged this fresh start in its wake. Pulling the air across a region like a squeegee across the windshield, wiping everything clean.
Breakfast in a little village eatery and I could see 8 US flags from my seat, each of them screaming in their own quiet way to be seen or heard as the wind whipped down the main street. Later in the day I regretted not taking a picture from where I sat. But I was caught up listening to two of my sons, talking, laughing, as we enjoyed our nourishing start to the day.
Then, as the day went from crisp and sharp to lagging and dragging, I realized that was on me, not on the day.
But, as the hours ran swiftly away and I tried to keep up, I took some pictures along the way.
I rounded the bend and made the hard left turn. Then I stopped to capture this photo. And I thought of the stories that those weathered boards could tell. Somehow I feel that we’d be better for knowing all of it.
I didn’t even stop for this one. I held up my camera and said, “Smile”. The camera snapped the picture and I looked at it later. But it’s a plowed field in front of a mountain and the sky makes it all look small.
Apparently there is still a light at the end of the tunnel. But honestly, I am usually the tunnel while the Lord Jesus remains my Light.
Hubbard Brook feeds the Connecticut River but here it just rushes in a low babble down the hillside. This reminded me of my late friend Joe Hubbard, because this stream not only shares the same last name, but I also think it’s left-handed.
We live in an age where comparisons are being made 24/7 whether we know it or not. Social media, TV, Internet ads, and many more outlets bombard us all with image. Image as in, this is how the perfect product, or the perfect moment, or even any product in the perfect setting, can make life, well, pretty near perfect.
You know what I am talking about. Pictures of how awesome other people’s life is, at least that is how it is made to look. At some level we all get caught up in the “keeping up with the Joneses” mentality. And we think out loud or to ourselves, “Well, my yard, my vacation, my this, or our that doesn’t like nearly as good as theirs”.
So, I am here to spread some ordinary extra moments. These are things that happen in an average day in my little world. Some might resonate, some may not. But the point is, be happy and thankful for what you do have. And sometimes that might just be the ability to think, to breathe, to work, to love, to feel, and so on. There is beauty all around us.
Just an ordinary day with an ordinary extra moment mixed in.