Watch Out for the Cracks!





We see the world not as it is, but as we are”
                                            Stephen Covey



I came in the door after my morning walk and my husband called out…”You’re up and out early this morning.”  I replied, "Yeah, my leg cramps are to blame for that.” He asked, “How was your walk?”  I answered, "It’s so hot and humid out there, and the neighbors are bailing their hay so my allergies are acting up.  The duck hunters are shooting their weapons like crazy and working on decimating our total bird population!”  I held up a pile of trash I had collected along my walk and dumped it in the garbage….. “Why can’t people take care of their own trash!”

I picked up my journal and started to write.  I remembered an incident that happened this summer.  when my husband and I were talking our 3 year-old granddaughter out for a walk to the park.  She was hopping along the cement pathway, and in her precious sing songy voice called out, “Don’t step on the cracks,  you break your mother’s back…watch out for the cracks! I followed alongside her, parroting her steps and repeating her words.  Suddenly she stopped, looked at my husband and sternly scolded him.  “Grandpa, you’re not watching…..you’re stepping on the cracks!  Look, you’re stepping on another crack!”  My husband smiled as his shoe went down once again on another crack.  He replied.  “You know baby, when you are just looking for the cracks you miss out on seeing all these pretty flowers.”  He spread his arm out to point to some beautifully manicured bright yellow roses alongside the road.  “I sure don’t want to miss out on that, do you? If we are just looking at the cracks, we will miss seeing the flowers.”


As I began putting my pen to the paper, I noticed out of the corner of my eye our roadrunner prancing under the Palo Verde tree. I saw drops of water atop the newly mowed lawn glistening with the rising of the sun.  And oh my goodness, that Bougainvillea vine, flushed with spectacular chartreuse colored flowers!  How had I not noticed that before?  I felt a smile beginning to grow…….Maybe I was too busy looking at the cracks!“