Today,  I decided to search for beauty when my anxiety had reached a certain level of intensity. In this last year, I have been too tired and too weak to do much of any thing because of the illness I have. The weatherman predicted  bad weather this afternoon-hail and wind. I thought,  if it rained, I’d put on a sweat shirt with a hood.. If it hailed, I’d come in out of the weather like a sane person would.   I grabbed my keys, and drove to the Gardens.

The air smelled like early spring…. earthy and fragrant with lots of different smells. The soil was black and loamy. I wanted to kneel down in the Gardens and sift the earth between my fingers, but old age made it difficult to kneel. The sky was dark with grey clouds and a brisk wind blew against my cheeks. I noticed first the Daffodils of different shades of yellow and the purple color of Hyacinths that covered large sections of the Gardens. I bent over to raise the head of a Daffodil so I could study the intricate pattern of its petals. They were soft like velvet.

I walked down the path until I came to the Butterfly Garden. Bushes were starting to leaf out and tiny blossoms clung to new twigs. I touched the pink buds of the Crabapple trees, the purple buds of the Redbuds, and the white blossoms of the Pear trees. The  golden color of Forsythia  caught my eye. The delicate pink buds of Tulips  were opening up. I walked further down the path and saw fresh mounds of mulch around each Rose-bush and the canes were nice and green and ready for new growth. Bushes with flaming red flowers grew to the right of the path. I saw Magnolia trees with pink flowers and one tree with pale yellow blossoms as big as my hand. Every now and then, I would see sculptures of children in different poses peering at nature.

I stopped to watch a male Cardinal with his red coat balance himself on a swaying branch as the wind picked up. A squirrel was having a little trouble staying on the feeder he had jumped on. There was so much beauty to see. I wondered why I didn’t come more often,  because the feeling of serenity inside me felt wonderful. I drove home and the beauty I had witnessed stayed with me for the rest of the night, feeding my soul.

Yu/stan/kema