EVERYDAY EPIPHANIES

 "Today a new sun rises for me; everything lives, everything is animated, everything seems to speak to me of my passion, everything invites me to cherish it." ~ Anne De Lenclos

Today I woke up feeling grumpy. I've had two killer headaches in a row this week, the AC wasn't working right yesterday, and the wind was howling like a son-of-a-gun, and tossing everything on the porch around, all. night. long! So this is what I started writing in my journal, while I was waiting for the sun to rise:

"Do you ever start to feel like the universe has it in for you for some reason? First it was all the visits from plumbers and septic people, and several thousand dollars down the drain (literally), trying to stop the poop floods downstairs. Then the well crapped out on us, and we just had to put that on a back burner for a while, thanks to expensive work done on both the AC and refrigerator, a bunch of really expensive dental work for both of us this year, and that mountain of hospital bills that were still left after the insurance company did their thing. Now, just when we are finally getting a handle on all of that, and thinking about tackling the well issue? The fridge and AC are both acting up again. It's never ending!"

But then I got to thinking about the call we got last week -- the one informing us that the new cleaning lady we had just recently found, and were so, so excited about, had died over the weekend, at only 57 years of age. Suddenly my list-making took a twist, and started to sound more like this:

"Still, I've got my hubby and my kiddos. I've got the view out this window. I've got books. I've got my art supplies. I've got an able body. I've got siblings, a BFF, the Muses, and all the artsy inspiration I get from my friends in the blogosphere. Best of all? I've got time!"

Once I'd finished with that, I opened up Sarah Ban Breathnach's Simple Abundance, and turned to today's essay. You'll never guess what it had to say. "Sometimes we are aware of the poet who dwells within us and registers every precious moment of our lives. More often, however, we move through our days in a fog or a frenzy -- until we're startled into consciousness by an unforeseen threat to something that we hold dear and have been taking for granted. I call these luminous moments 'everyday epiphanies,' because they jar us into a profound awareness of how much we have, and how much we have escaped, and how much there is to be grateful for." And then the sun came up.

Thus sayeth the Universe.