Zinnia in our garden, about to bloom
In a few hours, I will be on a plane to North Carolina where we will be spending the next nine days exploring the area.
It's part a family vacation and part an exploration into the question of "Might we like to live here?"
We are concentrating the "living question" around the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill area. We will be spending two days looking at homes with a realtor. We will tour the local Waldorf school. We will spending another two days driving around and checking out the area. We will probably ask the locals what they love about living there. We will eat some barbeque. We will see how a hot humid, 90-plus degree summer feels.
(Then, we will also visit the Atlantic Ocean, Charlotte and hopefully see Pearl Fryar's amazing topiary garden.)
I'm very excited to see what the next nine days unfolds.
We might decide we want to move. We might decide we're happy where we are. We might decide that more exploring is needed before we'll know.
No matter what unfolds I just want to be in the joy of the journey.
I toss that last sentence off like it's no big deal.
But it is, in fact, a big deal for me.
I've spent so much of my life wanting everything all planned out. Thinking if I just planned or worked or tried hard enough everything would be okay.
And when everything was okay, I would (finally) be okay, too.
I'm finally getting that isn't how life works.
It's sounds trite, but I'm really starting to open up to enjoying the journey, instead of longing for the destination to arrive.
I'm finding that I'm okay, right now, on the path, just as I am.
The joy is to be had right now. Not saved for someday.
While there have been many lessons and teachers that have created that opening, I think it's been the flowers that have taught me the most about enjoying the journey.
I look at this beautiful zinnia. Not yet in bloom, and still beautiful. Still (as I see it) joyful. Still trusting and enjoying the ride that blooming big is.
Whether we move or not, I'm carrying the image of this zinnia as my intention for how I want to be as our family considers this question:
Trusting. Enjoying the process. And knowing that on some level it's irrelevant what we decide: we'll be blooming wherever we are.
Tell me, what's your best wisdom on deciding to make a move in your life (literally or figuratively)? I'd love to hear it.
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Flowering Fridays is a weekly look at flowers through the lens of what they might teach us about flowering fully in our life. Past editions are here.