Dear Reader:

I had an epiphany yesterday ( well, maybe a little wink) when I walked into my den around 9:00 a.m from the garden. I had my door open and the sun was shining through the glass storm door. I turned on the ceiling fans and for some reason…the shadows of the fans turning around spread across the orange stucco wall.

It was so cool…watching the shadows dance to the circular motion of the ceiling fans. It was then that I remembered one of the workmen had graciously brought in his ladder Monday to replace a recessed bulb for me from the high den ceiling.

The worker had slanted the direction of the bulb, a little differently, from the other two lights, unknowingly, and now I had the fun of watching the results. His “error” opened up a whole new range of lighting and shadowing displays…never seen before.

I started thinking about this…how one small change can set off a whole new chain reaction…if we pause in life long enough to “turn around.”

So I grabbed my trusty iPhone/camera and set out on an adventure to see what lay behind me waiting to be seen with just one “turn around.”

I had walked past my rabbit statue, without a backwards glance several times in the garden, but yesterday I realized that the other “lazy susan” plant I bought… looked so cute and “fall-ish” behind my rabbit…perked that rabbit right up with the bright yellow flowers.

This “turn-around” item dates back a whole year…Over the weekend I came across the birthday card I bought for Mandy last year, lost, and found this year right before Mandy’s upcoming benchmark birthday on the third of September.

Inside the card…the verse reads:

You have brought me a special kind of happiness into my life, and I love the times we spend together. 

(So very true…such a special relationship between a mother and daughter.)

Monday night I was gathering up gardening tools and putting them in the garage. As I started slowly back towards the house I noticed the moon peeking out from under some shimmering wispy, veiled clouds.

The moon was between a quarter moon and a half moon…as if suspended in the starry skies waiting to move one step (or one night) closer to its goal of a full moon.

I aimed the iPhone and pressed the button but nothing seemed to happen…I jiggled it and then as I was “turning around” to aim it toward the moon and the darkening sky one more time…the flash went off and this beautiful, strange photo was created.

Not to be outdone…as darkness descended quickly upon the garden (it was a little after eight) something white caught my eye and I “turned around.” There was another beautiful moon flower where none had been just minutes before my photo of the moon.

It appeared to be calling me over with “Look at me…forget that faraway moon…and see me in all my beauty right before you.”

This time the flash immediately went off and a clear, un-abstracted photo emerged.

Sometimes in the busyness of life, with our eyes focused on the imminent next event in our lives,we forget to simply “turn around” and look behind us. There lies an invisible world of sheer beauty in all its abundance…overlooked by us too many times because we have our eyes glues to the prize straight ahead.

The “prize” can actually be behind us…not in front of us…if we just stop along life’s path and  “turn around.”

So until tomorrow…Let us never get completely entrenched in the “straight and narrow”  …sometimes the real beauty lies in the bent width of life… just a turn away.

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

* Anne has a most beautiful “turn around” story that she left in the comments early this morning…..thank you for sharing Anne.

My TURN AROUND story comes from my weekly walks with a birding group at Magnolia Gardens. Every Saturday around 10 am we’d see an eagle flying over the rice dikes near the Ashley River.

One Saturday we climbed the tower as usual; we looked and looked for that eagle. There was no sign of him until we “turned” to leave. He was perched in a tree not thirty feet behind us – a magnificent view!

*I think God loves eagles too….there is so much scripture referencing them….love this verse.

*Today is Eva Cate’s first day of school at ECDC….John saved pictures from each first day of school there since she was two. Basically it is the same group of students….almost like high school…Eva Cate is entering her final “senior” year. It is hard to believe! The next time I “turn around” Eva Cate will be graduating from high school. Times flies so fast!