A Beautiful Morning

Cora's for breakfast is a luxury. For those in the world where there are no 'Cora's' I can only say, too bad. Cora's is open for breakfast and lunch but they are famous for their breakfasts. They are wonderfully decadent. The food is created with an eye to art. I have a meeting with Jon, the one guy I supervise at Vita, and I suggest to him that we meet at Cora's. He's never been before, I know he'll be awed by the food.

My supervision style is 'let's chat until we're chatted out' so that's what we do. Jon talks about what he's up to, has a few questions for me, I have some for him. Breakfast over, meeting finished, it's a nice way to start the day. We both leave Cora's with a list of things to do. In my mind I'm already composing an email that I've promised him I'll write. The ramp down the curb cut to the car has a huge hole left by winter thaw so I push over to the second ramp and descend there. A car has pulled into the disabled parking bay beside mine. There are two people in the car, a young man in his twenties and a woman, by looks I think is his mother.

She comes round to his side of the car and helps him out, he walks the 'There Was a Crooked Man' walk and his mother slows her pace to walk with him. A few feet along the sidewalk, towards Cora's front door, he stops. Takes a breath and says, "What a beautiful morning." His mothers face, full of rush and worry seconds before, loses all it's tension and she smiles at him, "Yes, it is a beautiful morning." They proceed ahead.

All day yesterday I thought to myself, "What a beautiful day." Just the thought made it so.

Of course there were stressful moments, it's work. Of course I had to do things I'd prefer not, it's work. Of course. But outside my office window there is a huge vacant lot. Grass grows randomly in clumps. A pile of wood rots on the south side, a pile of metal rusts on the north. Not pretty. But over the last few weeks two animals, about the size of really large gophers have moved in. They house themselves in the pile of wood and play around the pile of metal. Ann and Franca are convinced they are hedgehogs, Joe assures me they are not. I don't care. They are cute. That's enough for me.

Several times, I stopped work and watched them play, thinking "What a beautiful day."

It took someone else to notice it. Someone else to comment on it. A child that others would consider a burden lightened the load on his mothers shoulders, on mine, just by noticing, simply, that it was a beautiful day.