Wednesday, May 20, 2015

Sometimes a Little Sun on Your Face Makes All the Difference


I took this photo last month while visiting Gruyére, Switzerland. My husband and I were trailing up a gravel path toward the castle when I saw this woman standing at the railing with her face turned toward the sun. She kept her eyes closed as we approached—never breaking away from the moment and the sky, not realizing that I had secretly snapped her picture. As we passed, I noticed she was holding a bouquet of wildflowers loosely behind her back.

She could have just been enjoying a beautiful day, practicing mindfulness and gratitude, soaking up the sun and collecting flowers.

She could have been emerging from a walk on the shadowed, chillier side of the castle, and needing to warm her cooled skin. 

Or she could have been taking flowers to one of the graves in the cemetery down the hill. She could have been feeling sad or nostalgic, thinking of a lost loved one.

It's amazing how sometimes when life hurts, something as simple as feeling the sun on your face can remind you that things are going to be okay. That there is warmth and light around you, in spite of whatever darkness you might feel.

We're fortunate to have small pleasures to count on.

The smell of wildflowers. The sound of gravel crunching under our feet. The feeling of sun on our cheeks. And sometimes the sight of a stranger, not meaning to but, reminding us that comforts like this can make all the difference.