Daffodils

to honor the succulent savior, sassafrass-singing, anti-senescence,
sin-inducing, serpentine Springtime...

There's a million things I love about this time of year, and it's no secret that daffodils are at the top of my list (they've already flooded my apartment)...but this guy just says it better... his name was Wordsworth, for god's sake...

I WANDER'D lonely as a cloud

That floats on high o'er vales and hills,

When all at once I saw a crowd,

A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine

And twinkle on the Milky Way,
They stretch'd in never-ending line

Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but theyOut-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,

In such a jocund company:
I gazed -- and gazed -- but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie

In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye

Which is the bliss of solitude;

And then my heart with pleasure fills,

And dances with the daffodils.

So this is what you do: you tap into that well that you filled up while you could, while the love was pouring over you in a torrent, when you breathed it in deep and swallowed it whole because even though it was unusual it was also very real. And you knew that when a drought came, or just some thirst, you knew that that well would still be there, full, with no expiration date (thank god).

So this is what you've been doing, without even knowing it: you've been sipping from your well because that love is so good that a little goes a long way. Isn't that all you really need? A little something magical that makes the ordinary different and the extraordinary just icing on the cake. And, hopefully, there will always be a source that replenishes that well every so often, maybe when you're afraid you might be running low. It'll be the muse that floats out from the walls or the vision that you see when you blink, or the memory that feels like a dream; it'll be the slow, steady pulse under your breath, it'll keep you going. And when you're all dried up like an old bone and you think there's just nothing left in you, no chance or hope or way out (because somehow--can you believe it?-- you can actually forget the defining moments in your life) maybe there is a way, because there's a well.