The Dance

The wind blows strongly from the south. The sun shines warmly in a cloudless blue sky. My jacket is wrapped tightly around me in the cold, and gloves warm my hands . But the invitation to dance with the waves is too strong to ignore. It has been sitting in my own inbox for a week now, and today is the day I must accept this invitation. Tomorrow will be too late.

 

I had said to my grandchildren, ‘I want to paddle in Lake Michigan before I leave’. They looked at me with astonishment. ‘But you have no boat,’ said the 6 year-old!  ‘ I won’t come,’ said the 9 year-old. Their mum and dad were too busy with their work to join this dance, this day.

 

I walk with purpose along the waterfront with just a few like-minded people. We do not speak, or if we do the wind carries the ‘Good morning’ far distant. How clean, white and engaging is the sand. ‘Come’, it whispers in the wind.

 

It holds firm and supports my purposeful feet as I stride on, wondering at my own folly. Bravely, off come the gloves, the shoes, the socks. Pants are rolled up. My feet join the dance. Oh, how those wavelets dance, darting this way with a whoosh, and that way with a plop, backward, forward, sideways, always gliding as my feet follow their lead.

 

This is not a silent dance. The waves are not the only dancers here today. I hear the seagulls, and then I see them. They too whish and whoosh themselves, to and fro, upwards and downwards in the waltz on the lake. Oh! My heart exclaims, just look at those baby gulls, with their little short legs and flapping wings, learning to dance too in the movement of the lake. How busily their wings flutter and their feet plop as they do their best to stay grouped with their parents in the face of the wind. How protected they are in the middle of that swooping, gliding, shrieking flock, teaching them to dance.

 

My feet are not cold; my heart is singing. I could be walking along the shoreline of Sydney, Australia, with a southerly blowing hard and cold, revelling in the dance of  wind, waves and sand, with sea gulls reeling and swooping. My spirit expands with joy as I sense this universal connection with sun, wind, sand, and waves the world over. And here I am, a speck on this vast lake and beach, at one with the dance that unites the spirit of every beach-lover, on every shoreline, in all nations and islands of our wondrous world.

 

‘I’ve paddled today’, I tell my grandchildren after school. My grand daughter looks at me sceptically, ‘Your hair isn’t wet’, she comments. ‘No’, it was enough just to put my feet in, like the seagulls’, I reply.

‘Was it cold?’, says my grandson.

‘ It was well worth it’, I reply. ‘My spirit enjoyed the best dance, to the best music, in the whole, wide, world’. 

A Letter of Resignation

Dear Part of my Heart,

 

It has been gradually coming to my attention that you are not pulling your weight. Our business has flourished, not necessarily in a material way, but it has occupied countless hours, many of which caused overtime, and too many sleepless nights. It has occurred to me that to dispense with your services would actually increase the firm's output, and heighten our effectiveness.

 

I do not want you to take this decision personally. You have done your best. But, consider for a moment these factors. I want you to reflect on the number of occasions you were not able to say 'No' to regular customers or prospective customers. It seems to me that you have been lacking in discernment; it is valuable to know the time when it is appropriate to withdraw from a business partnership. It is all well and good to keep on giving these customers further opportunities, but opportunities to do what? To waste your time and energy? This interrupts the development of our business potential. It has been counter-productive. I would suggest that you reflect on this quality of yours in your next job, and not repeat this mistake.

 

While I am on this subject, and I speak so frankly only for your own good I hope you understand, another area that requires improvement is your communication. When I overhear your telephone conversations, after all we work next to each other, I cannot help but notice your long silences. What is happening then? Are you being convinced of something that is only going to lead to a failed business opportunity? Or, are you just wasting business time? This also is a counter-productive habit for the development of our core assets.

 

There is one final matter that has led me to demand your resignation. Just consider the number of times you have been completely hoodwinked. It is not good enough. There are many times when a nod and a wink suffices. Sharpen up, for your own good. It is not helpful to our business development to be so honest with those who are not serious on the negotiating table. Learn the differences my heart. Find your discernment. Know when to let go. Know when mind must speak. Keep your goals in view. And then you will become an asset.

Margaret Lawton

 

The Magnolia Tree

When I arrived, early March, the tree looked dead. Its thick grey trunk emerged from the brown earth with a certain stubborn starkness, as if to say, 'I stay; this is my place you know'. From this solid base, thinner branches and, even slighter twigs, swayed dangerously as the wind howled around, in and out, as if to say, 'I'm a force here too you know'.

 

Then, one day, a squirrel darted up the trunk and ran along a branch, before it hopped onto the roof. Then another squirrel, as if to say, 'There is life here you know'.

 

The wind still blew, the trunk remained solid, and on some days the weak sun reached into the corner of the brown garden with its grey tree trunk.

 

The birds were the next to arrive. They flew even faster than the squirrels darted. They did not run and leap. They flew, pecked and twittered, looking for seeds and berries, as if to say, 'We need food too you know'.

 

The birds were the first to find life in those dry, grey twigs, as they pecked away. What my eyes could not see, they found. How did they find these treasures? Did they see, or smell, or sense, the life energy that was flowing up from the hard brown earth, into that solid trunk, and out into those waving twigs?

 

They knew of course. Slowly my eye began to see those tiny mounds, the minute cracks, that heralded the arrival of buds. Oh, how slowly and silently the energy crept up from the cold earth, in search of the freedom to blossom. Will it ever happen? I wondered and waited, watching the squirrels and birds in their bustling search.

 

The first blossom was like a miracle of affirmation. The white, the red, the fulness, the joy, the beauty! One bloom became many; so many that twigs and branches bowed under their weight. Twig upon twig, branch upon branch, waving and rejoicing in the fulness of their freedom and beauty.

 

The soft wind became a howling gale. The blossoms began to drop their petals. In scarcely a day, their beauty showered down to the green grass below. Yes, the grass too had transformed from brown to brilliant green, beckoning the leaves emerging in the magnolia tree to join the cascading joy of spring.

 

Why, oh why, is such beauty, such freedom, such richness, spreading oh so slowly from the dried earth, and ripening in all its glory, such a brief encounter? Is it the nature of all creation, I wonder, to struggle, to emerge, and to take its place in the wondrous complexity and profusion of our life cycle?

Margaret Lawton