THE MUSINGS OF A WRITING MIND

| dos / nature |

When I was younger, I remember spending the majority of my different car journeys around staring out of windows to gaze upon the magnificent perfections of the outside world. While I appreciate every season, I always found the short transition of spring to summer to be the most wonderful. It would be when almost every tree had lightened once more with the lovely littering of leaves, and the bushes would be ever-changing as we drove past, one a beautiful golden like ichor from the gods and the next a glorious green with modest eruptions of delicate ivory flowers blossoming from somewhere deep inside of the small structures. Trees of various kinds would be springing up in the background, shades of yellow-green, forest-green and almost even black-green astounding my young mind as I watched them for as long as possible before the scenery would speed past and change once more.

My favourite change would reveal meadows of bright rapeseed, shining such a yellow you would think they were all of the small suns that children drew in the corners of papers, surrounded by the most vibrant greenery with old chipped fences and rusted metal gates blocking them from the rest of the world. Sometimes, I'd come across the most occasional trees that shone astonishingly red, creating such contrasts in the landscape that you couldn't help but stare. I remember the palest blue skies ahead, that blended so perfectly into the wisps of clouds that you wondered if God was painting it as you went.

And you would have been so engrossed in nature, and in the beat of your favourite song on the radio and the way the world around you seemed to shimmer that my god! You just couldn't possibly imagine worrying about anything in the world, and no matter your age you would feel like a child learning about magic for the first time because it was just so perfect.

But then you'd grown up, and suddenly you'd be too busy rushing to your job or to your next class to just stop and breathe in the delicate bluebells and the drooping snowdrops and those speed-limit sign yellow-orange tulips that appeared out of nowhere! And occasionally you'd wish you were a child again, able to see those same old things and feel so happy about them, able to stop and pause and just appreciate what was right next to you.

You'll think, now, that you're just too busy to stop. You don't have enough time in the whole world, because you're always going to or from, back and forth. You never get to just be, do you? But I will tell you that happiness stems from making time to think about the joys in the world, because from hating or ignoring it you will receive nothing, but from loving it you will receive everything.

2; find the beauty in the world around you, and make time to welcome it, and you're one step closer to happiness.