JOY ALONG THE WAY: THE EXCITEMENT OF LITTLE, EVERYDAY THINGS

At a recent all women's party, I sat listening to the gaggle of voices, so strident and intermingled it was almost impossible to hear what was being discussed. But, in a rare clarified moment, I heard the distinct statement, "Every day is exciting." I looked quickly to identify the speaker of these words. I wanted to converse later with her when I had the chance.

"I like what you said," I told her. She began to qualify the statement. "It's exciting for me," she explained. And that was all we exchanged before the surge of talk encompassed us again.

I eye-followed her movements about the crowded room and recognized in her open approach and engaging, watchful eyes the attributes one must have to find every day exciting.

I would have liked to ask, "What things excited you today?" I lost her in the crowd, so asked the question of myself and answered it, silently, of course.

There were these two vine-ripened tomatoes I planned to pick the next day. It seemed so fitting to have ripe tomatoes on the window sill. They seemed to shout, in red letters, "The urgency of spring is over. Now we settled down toward ripeness and maturity." "Earliest I've ever had ripe tomatoes," I told myself, smugly. Maybe there was an element of cheating involved. I didn't sow the seeds and raise the plants. I bought plants that already had two little green tomatoes on them.

On the same day I picked the tomatoes the little martins came out of their apartments to try out the world. My, the prideful chattering the parents uttered. For days the little heads peeked out from the little round holes and then out they came, one by one. Eight of them. I do believe parent martins fly off to gather in neighboring martins to see what has come to pass. The whole premise was alive with new life. Excitement.

Then, later, ears alert for new exciting sounds, I heard a quail. It has been so long since I've heard the sound coming from the south border of the Park, along the creek bank. Since the days of the black and white cow pasture turning into a site for close together apartments, the summery calls of the quail have diminished so much I thought they were gone forever. Maybe the quails are getting used to people.

On another day, open to excitement saw a bouquet of pink impatiens in the birds bath water! By some lagniappe-ish circumstance a hanging pot of blooming patients is so placed that at a certain time of the day, it is reflected in the bird bath water. So far it hasn't happened but I'm open to the excitement that will come when a bird or two happens to take a fluttery bath in the "flower strewn" water. I half expect the splashing water droplets to be pink.

I bent over to pick up a stick from the garage floor. It moved, slitheringly. Old Stripe's great, great grandchild, I thought. Old Stripe got flattened in the street. I've missed, not terribly, his perambulations about the yard. I automatically reached for the hoe. Snakes push my "kill" button. But nearby is a button labeled, "hold harmless." It is bigger than the "kill" button. In my seconds of indecision came the vision of Aaron casting down his rod before Pharaoh and it becoming a snake. Exciting! When I encountered Stripe III again I'll think of how Aaron's rod, budded and blossomed. Life goes on, even for snakes. Excitement!

REJOICE!

Jean Bell Mosley is an author and longtime resident of Cape Girardeau.