Down the Rabbit Hole

Choices & the Beautiful Interlude

Blog City
DAY 2394--February 23, 2021
Prompt: Nelson Mandela said, “May your choices reflect your hopes, not your fears.”
Is this easy to do? What do you think?

I start any blog about "choices" lately with a great deal of trepidation as I am struggling with my personal choices more and more these days. I am a little afraid of what may come out if I lean in and examine them closely, put them through the filter of my craft. Honestly, I once thought I was pretty good about making choices based on my hopes for the future. I think I tended to reach toward my ambitions, make choices based on where I wanted to be, where I felt I could go. I had been raised to believe I could go anywhere and so it was easy to dream big. I've come to realize however that it gets harder and harder to make choices based on one's hopes when you learn a bit more about the way the world really works. I feel like I shed a lot of the naivety of youth and with it, unfortunately, a lot of my optimism and hope right along with it. As you age, as the responsibilities mount, it because much more practical to make choices based on one's fears. There are many more fears these days then hopes, truth be told. I've made choices because I'd been afraid of failing and letting my family down. I've made choices because I've been afraid the things I believed about people were no longer valid. I've made choices because I've lost faith in my future, in the path I was taking. My answer to the prompt's question is an empathic, no...is it not easy to make choices based on hopes rather than fears. I'm loathe to admit it, but I believe that latter is true.


Blogging Circle of Friends
Day 3020: February 23, 2021
Prompt: Describe a beautiful morning or a beautiful evening.

We've had a lot of snow these last few weeks on Feb here in the Northeast. I've woken up several mornings to a world blanketed by an overnight snowfall. In those still moments, before the dogs launch themselves into the yard, there is a beautiful quiet. The yard is covered by a perfect carpet of brilliant white that reflects those first tentative rays of golden sunshine that stream through the trees. Stepping out on the deck, the air is fresh and clean and I take deep breaths, appreciating this pristine moment when my world is just waking. These are the mornings I love the most. When I finally relent and let the dogs out, they race about the yard, grabbing mouthfuls of snow and marring the perfect drifts with their crisscrossing tracks and the simple beauty and balance of the morning is lost in their raucous joy.

By contract, the most beautiful evenings are those that come in late Fall. The indigo sky is full of stars and the outside fireplace crackles and glows in the crisp air. Sitting outside, wrapped in an oversized sweatshirt, the bats swoop and circle above your head. There is still enough foliage to mask the nearly houses so that you feel cocooned and isolated in the nature around you as you sip your wine and enjoy that autumn magic.