Lindsay Eland - Middle Grade Author

School is almost over.

Ahhhhhh.

The anticipation surrounding this final last day of school is filled with dreams of lazy mornings, sticky ice cream cones, wildflowers and wildlife popping out from a long winter sleep. Filled with hot days (hopefully), cool evenings, and the most perfect blue sky you can imagine.

And this anticipation is much the same as it will be in just two short months as another year of school begins. Filled with new pencils and notebooks, friends, the sounds of voices on the playground, the smell of glue and cedar chips from the class pet.

I can’t wait for this summer, and I can’t wait for next fall. I can’t wait for my daughter’s birthday in a few weeks, or my son’s birthday in a month. I can’t wait to go to the beach. I can’t wait to celebrate eight years with my husband. I can’t wait to finish revising my book. I can’t wait to have a book published, and I can’t wait to have another.

All of this anticipation can sometimes keep us from living in the moment. But it also makes our hearts thump quick in our chests, brings a smile of hope to our face, and allows us to dream about the surprises along the way.

Those dreams may or may not come true in the end, but it doesn’t really matter.

Because it’s the dreaming and the anticipating that makes each live-in-the-moment second all worthwhile.

Hope 

It is what moves me from moment to moment

     propels me to wish upon a star

          allows me to dream

                pushes me to imagine

Hope

Remains suspended upon the tail of a shooting star

          turning each blurry moment into one that

is expectant

aware

and fully

           alive

Life.

Right now at my house, it is spring. But does it look like spring?

Um…no.

This morning I woke up to six inches sitting like a thick layer of sugar on the deck rail. All our boots still sit by the door, our winter coats haven’t been put away, we still have the fireplace going in the mornings and evenings.

Around the trees though, we can see ground. The warmth from deep in the earth is melting the stubborn snow, and the birds have made their arrival known, though I’m sure after last night, they regret coming back from vacation to this. 

But life is popping up in places. Buds forming on the branches of the aspens, small bites of grass here and there. Then there is that life that is still buried under the four feet of snow in the back yard.

It’s hidden, but it’s there. 

That’s what it’s like with magic.

Heck, that’s what it’s like with life.

And all of life

        if seen through eyes that are open and thankful for another day

                is magic.