Sour Grapes
"Everything that's really worthwhile in life comes to us free - our minds, our souls, our bodies, our hopes, our dreams, our intelligence, our love of family and friends and country. All of these priceless possessions are free. " - Earl Nightingale
Happy Labor Day! This morning I write to you from one of my favorite writing spots my back patio, overlooking my garden. I am especially enjoying it with the beautiful official last day of summer before us.
Now on to my "sour grapes" that I wanted to share with you. Ok, for sure things in life happen that we don't plan or foresee before us. We want what we want and hope for the best. From my writing spot here in our little piece of heaven on earth, there is usually a lot going on around me as I write including birds chattering, pooches running around, and from time to time a hot air balloon goes floating past.
A few weeks ago I sat here writing as I was watched a multitude of Robins continue to feed from our little vineyard of grapes that we have over the arbor of our barbeque area. It's not a huge space or a huge number of grapes that we get from it but the Robin's were taking them in droves. Sometimes dropping them as they flew on and splattering grape juice on the patio. Yes, imagine little grape bombs flying past.
Well you know how it goes when you put up with an irritation for a while...then you finally say enough!! That happened for me. I stopped the writing project I was working on, grabbed my garden snipers and began harvesting grapes. While snipping I figured I would make grape jelly like our friends had done last year when they had graciously harvested for us. I had not heard from them this year and quite frankly there really wasn't that many left.
With my full big bowl of grapes I envisioned myself making jelly. Placed the bowl of grapes on the kitchen counter and had my friend Maddy email me her recipe for grape jelly. Well at this point there is something you should know about me - while I do love to cook I am what you would call a short-term cook.
Yes, a Rachel Ray kind of gal who loves to have it done quickly and deliciously. Reading through the grape jelly recipe - I just couldn't see past all the work that was required to be done. With a pretty heavy list of others things to be done - the grapes for the past few weeks have remained sitting on my kitchen counter - looking at me each time I walked passed them reminding me that time was ticking to get the jelly made.
You might be saying - hey, just eat the darn grapes. Well the grapes that our arbor provides are small, very sour and have little seeds in them. Not so enjoyable for just popping right into your mouth. Perfect for jelly.
Last night I heard from our friend Dale who said they were ready to come harvest the grapes and get to making some jelly. I had to sadly tell him about the bowl - not five-gallon bucket that they had harvested last year. Sharing with him that he was more than welcome to the bowl he said they would pass.
So here I am this morning with my bowl of grapes that are starting to shrivel. As I write this I have set them on a paper plate hoping the birds will come to get them after all. That I should have just left well enough alone. Or as the Beatles song that is floating through my head this morning said so well, let it be.
As with many things that come our way in life sometimes just what is - is. The harder we try to change things - especially after waiting too long to do anything about it, just makes it worse. We end up with the equivalent to a bowl of shriveled up sour grapes.
Yes, the morale of this story and the victory in which I am deriving from it is that sometimes we need to let things go for the sake of what is meant to be. My "free" grapes belonged to the birds this year - pure and simple. They had been munching on them for a good month and I should have at this point left them to "their" grapes. But come next year I will be ready in the spring to have them munching on somebody else's arbor!
The good things in life as Earl Nightingale started off with in this week's letter are in fact - for free. The beauty of this day and the life we are open to living. I hope that you are better for your labors as we celebrate this day being labor free. And for my friends who find themselves working today (and you know who you are) be grateful for the ability to do so and find joy in all you do.
