LIfe is So Startling. . .

I could imagine this place. I would just never imagine I'd really be here.
Palm fronds reach in the window to my left. Men and women dressed in all white play croquet on a manicured lawn right below another window. The crack of the wooden balls hitting each other echo past the spreading live oak trees and blooming oleanders. Past the croquet lawn the intra-coastal waterway twinkles in the morning sun. I'm surrounded by old, six foot tall windows which swing open to let the palm fronds and breeze into the brick and wood porch off our room at the Jekyll Island Club Hotel. Seated in my wicker rocking chair - I'm enjoying Starbucks coffee and playing on the internet. Mike has already left for his conference meeting.
This place was built in the late 1800's by folks like the Vanderbilts and Pulitzers and Rockefellers and in so many ways it hasn't changed. The old wood and brick and glass smell and feel like an old house. And yet, I love that air conditioning!
I have many friends who write in the fantasy or supernatural genres. Sitting here this morning and watching the spanish moss sway I know this is all the fantasy I can handle. Or as one of my favorite quotes from Emily Dickinson says:
"Life is so startling it leaves little room for anything else."
Look around you today and notice where life is trying it's best to startle you. To maintain the ability to be startled is key in living with joy.