"Mother, you must come to see the daffodils before
they are over."
I wanted to go, but it was a two-hour drive from Laguna
to
Next Tuesday dawned cold and rainy. Still, I had
promised, and reluctantly I drove there. When I finally walked into Carolyn's
house I was welcomed by the joyful sounds of happy children. I delightedly
hugged and greeted my grandchildren.
"Forget the daffodils, Carolyn! The road is
invisible in these clouds and fog, and there is nothing in the world except you
and these children that I want to see badly enough to drive another inch!"
My daughter smiled calmly and said, "We drive in
this all the time, Mother."
"Well, you won't get me back on the road until it
clears, and then I'm heading for home!" I assured her.
"But first we're going to see the daffodils. It's
just a few blocks," Carolyn said.
"I'll drive. I'm used to this."
"Carolyn," I said sternly, "Please turn
around."
"It's all right, Mother, I promise. You will never
forgive yourself if you miss this experience."
After about twenty minutes, we turned onto a small
gravel road and I saw a small church. On the far side of the church, I saw a
hand lettered sign with an arrow that read, "
It looked as though someone had taken a great vat of
gold and poured it over the mountain peak and its surrounding slopes. The
flowers were planted in majestic, swirling patterns, great ribbons and swaths
of deep orange, creamy white, lemon yellow, salmon pink, and saffron and butter
yellow. Each different colored variety was planted in large groups so that it
swirled and flowed like its own river with its own unique hue. There were five
acres of flowers.
"Who did this?" I asked Carolyn. "Just one woman," Carolyn answered.
"She lives on the property. That's her home."
Carolyn pointed to a well-kept A-frame house, small and modestly sitting in the
midst of all that glory.
We walked up to the house.
On the patio, we saw a poster. "Answers to the
Questions I Know You Are Asking", was the headline. The first answer was a
simple one. "50,000 bulbs," it read. The second answer was, "One
at a time, by one woman. Two hands, two feet, and one brain." The third
answer was, "Began in 1958."
For me, that moment was a life-changing experience. I
thought of this woman whom I had never met, who, more than forty years before,
had begun, one bulb at a time, to bring her vision of beauty and joy to an
obscure mountaintop. Planting one bulb at a time, year after year, this unknown
woman had forever changed the world in which she lived. One day at a time, she
had created something of extraordinary magnificence, beauty, and inspiration.
The principle her daffodil garden taught is one of the greatest principles of
celebration.
That is, learning to move toward our goals and desires
one step at a time—often just one baby-step at time--and learning to love the
doing, learning to use the accumulation of time. When we multiply tiny pieces
of time with small increments of daily effort, we too will find we can
accomplish magnificent things. We can change the world.
"It makes me sad in a way," I admitted to
Carolyn. "What might I have accomplished if I had thought of a wonderful
goal thirty-five or forty years ago and had worked away at it 'one bulb at a
time' through all those years? Just think what I might have been able to
achieve!"
My daughter summed up the message of the day in her
usual direct way. "Start tomorrow," she said.
She was right. It's so pointless to think of the lost
hours of yesterdays. The way to make learning a lesson of celebration instead
of a cause for regret is to only ask, "How can I put this to use
today?"
Use the Daffodil Principle. Stop waiting …
Until your car or home is paid off
Until you get a new car or home
Until your kids leave the house
Until you go back to school
Until you finish school
Until you clean the house
Until you organize the garage
Until you clean off your desk
Until you lose 10 lbs.
Until you gain 10 lbs.
Until you get married
Until you get a divorce
Until you have kids
Until the kids go to school
Until you retire
Until summer
Until spring
Until winter
Until fall
Until you die...
There is no better time than right now to be happy.
Happiness is a journey, not a destination.
So work like you don't need money. Love like you've
never been hurt, and,
Dance like no one's watching.
Wishing you a beautiful, daffodil day!
Don't be afraid that your life will end,
Be afraid that it will never begin.
Source: E-mail in circulation
Daffodils
I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er
vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a
crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the
trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the
breeze.
Continuous as the stars that
shine
And twinkle on the Milky Way,
They stretch'd in
never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a
glance,
Tossing their heads in
sprightly dance.
The waves beside them danced;
but they
Out-did the sparkling waves
in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed—and gazed—but little
thought
What wealth the show to me
had brought:
For oft, when on my couch I
lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward
eye
Which is the bliss of
solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure
fills,
And dances with the
daffodils.
(1804)
William Wordsworth
(1770-1850)
To Daffodils
Fair Daffodils, we weep to see
You haste away so soon;
As yet the early-rising sun
Has not attain'd his noon.
Stay, stay,
Until the hasting day
Has run
But to the even-song;
And, having pray'd together, we
Will go with you along.
We have short time to stay, as you,
We have as short a spring;
As quick a growth to meet decay,
As you, or anything.
We die
As your hours do, and dry
Away,
Like to the summer's rain;
Or as the pearls of morning's dew,
Ne'er to be found again.
Robert Herrick
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3HhKGnoJIu4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQD2OJA895c
http://www.metacafe.com/watch/2653719/a_poem_from_longfellow/
