JOY ALONG THE WAY: SEASON OF SHIFTING PATCHES OF WARMTH, LIGHT

Now comes the season of shifting patches of light and warmth as the wind-blown, puffy spring clouds move swiftly across the blue sky. At one morning moment the magazine rack will be in bright sunlight as if inviting me to "come read" and before I get there to pick up the latest edition of "Birds and Blooms" the light has moved to illuminate the great pot of shamrock Viney brought. I go there to marvel again at the lush greenness I get to admire once a year.

Thus, I move from one thing to another in order to stay up with the fast moving pleasant patches of light.

It's the same way outside. I see a warm sunny spot by the garage where winter leaves have lodged and decide it will be a good place to work out partially atrophied winter muscles. Ere I get a minuscule pile raked away, it seems I see lilac buds bursting into bloom, there where the sun is beaming upon them. I go to the lilacs and touch the buds lovingly, whispering to them Whitmanish, "You won't be the last of lilacs in my dooryard to bloom."

Observers of my actions might think more than my arm muscles are hardened as I dart around trying to keep up with the warm sunny spots. But even my four-legged friends make a habit of playing and resting in patches of light. They just have more patience, knowing that if they stay put long enough the sunshine will come again soon. So it is with the squirrel who finds a sunny crotch in the oak and stays there long stretches of time awaiting the whimsical game of the clouds and sun.

For years you and I searched for the gray fox we knew to be somewhere on the farm. "You don't look for its den," Grandpa advised. "Just go quietly through the woods to all the little sunny knolls you know and hide, down wind. Eventually you'll see him."

There were so many sunny knolls where we could wait, down wind. We didn't have patience to wait for hours while we half expected the fox to be a mile away, curled up on another knoll.

Eventually we did see him, unexpectedly. It was midwinter and we weren't down wind. There was no wind, just a bright morning sun glistening on a foot of snow covering a little knoll.

He wasn't curled up either like we had expected, but just stood there like a statue. The sun glinted on every guard hair and made him, indeed, look like a silver fox which we sometimes called him. We stood so long in rapt admiration, we had to run the last half mile of our journey to school to keep from being tardy.

My last cat, Black Silk, followed the sun around the house, seeking out the eastern window ledge, then around to the south one, then a west one.

I don't know whether or not four leggers have headaches but when I have a headache or a niggling little problem, the tangled strands of which have to be laid out and identified and put into place, I like a sunny knoll. If in the house, a sunny window will do, just as long as my head is in the sun. Outside I don't have a sunny knoll in a strict sense. Where the big wild cherry tree was, there is a sort of knoll. I discard it in favor of a chair half hidden in the viburnum bush, or the mock orange where I can stick my head out to get the full force of the healing rays, to rest my soul, too, in the beneficent rays.

When one is really troubled, or in need of refreshment, and there is no literal sunny knoll, one can close his/her eyes and seek out a spot of spiritual warmth of light you have imagined or had put into words for you such as walking among the sheep in green pastures alongside the still waters.

REJOICE!

~Jean Bell Mosley is an author and longtime columnist for the Southeast Missourian.