Look

It was a gift. The day, this day, was a gift that came unbidden, without conscious thought. The world turned, the sun appeared, then light! light! That revelation of what was there, still there, always there.

She started to say something, hesitated, then said it anyway, "We're still here! Look! The sun has risen, again...a miracle in itself, without prompts or reminders or bells going off."

"Yep," he said...which surprised her. 

         He was interested! Well, who wouldn't be, but still, she was surprised. "And it happens every day," she said.

 

He was sitting up now, one leg over the edge of the bed, moving slowly for a guy who usually leapt out of bed and body-blocked her to get to the bathroom first. So she waited. She could have beat him, but she waited, for some disclaimer--or joke--at the blessings of the new day.

"Which," she said, "which makes it . . . "

"Even more amazing!" he said. "And our job is to make the most of it, to make it wonderful, to celebrate this day, this dawn, this dawning day."

She nearly choked at his response, or, worse, laughed, but, luckily, she held it in, and waited for the clever remark, the name-calling, Ms. Pollyanna or She-Whose-Head-is-in-the-Clouds....something clever or sarcastic or, more likely, acerbic.

But nothing came. He was sitting on the edge of the bed, his back to her, looking out the window, which now, miraculously, had a rosy hue.

"Look to this day..." he said, almost meditatively. "That's what my dad always said, his first words to me...to all of us...every morning. 'Look to this day.'"

"You never told me that," she said.

"'Look to this day/for it is life,'" he said, almost in a whisper, a seductive whisper. "'...the very life of life.'"

"Who said that?" she asked.

"I did!" he said in that don't fool around voice she was used to. "Let's get about it, Fairy Princess. You know, 'The bliss of growth/the glory of action...'" And he was up, but she swiveled just in time to catch the pillow, hurl it back, and make it to the bathroom first.

Look To This Day

Look to this day:
For it is life, the very life of life.
In its brief course

Lie all the verities and realities of your existence.
The bliss of growth,
The glory of action,
The splendour of achievement
Are but experiences of time.

For yesterday is but a dream
And tomorrow is only a vision;
And today well-lived, makes
Yesterday a dream of happiness
And every tomorrow a vision of hope.
Look well therefore to this day;
Such is the salutation to the ever-new dawn!

Kalidasa (5th century CE Sanskrit poet and dramatist)