Start Imperfect on Day Two

This is a perfect Scotch Broom flower ... one of the most hated, invasive plants in California.

 

Day One

There’s always a Day One … the first step … a new beginning.
Day One comes battery charged, full tank, bug-free windshield,
carefully-folded map, Valhalla highlighted.
Day One comes with shoes shined, bright bow in place,
face all aglow with roses and lollypops.
Day One comes with pencils sharpened, bright idea aglimmer,
perfect metaphor forming, audience waiting, breath bated.

Day One:
24 hours of magical perfection
followed by Day Two,
the back-to-it, oh-you-again,
smudged-faced step-sister who cleans the hearth,
eventually claiming the glass-slipper prince,
before going on to another
Day One.
#

Today is Day One … again.
Scratch that.
Let’s start on Day Two.

Beginning another cycle of the Gratitude Miracles Journal, this time starting on a Wednesday, on the second day of June, deliberately trying to avoid the perfection demon who grins ear-to-ear while gripping the seeds of defeat behind his back. 

He’s a sly one, Mr. Perfect. Color outside the lines and the party’s over, headed for the abyss of abject failure. Blame the slip. Enjoy the plunge. Binge and flagellate all the way to purgatory.

Or.

Why not start imperfect on Day Two? Why not know there is no perfect ... there’s only a road from here to there with a thousand side roads and lemonade stands begging you to stop … just for a little while, just for a cool drink, just for a quick email peek.

Who cares if you hop, skip, jump, or take a quick nap along the way? Wake up and begin again.

I have a friend who raves about the Gratitude Miracles Journal. She calls and reads me quotes from it and what she’s written as her gratitude. She doesn’t start with Cycle 1, Day 1. She goes wherever she wants, follows whatever catches her fancy. I imagine her journal filling up one random pages at a time while she overflows with joy and gratitude. 

I want that freedom to follow the breadcrumbs of  happenstance and joy.

So, today I’m starting on Day 2 with a resolution to write a gratitude somewhere within the journal every day.

Thank you, Barbara.