This is another bloom from our little pond, but I got in closer this time, close enough to see the petals thrown open in full circle, every one of them tilted up and outward, the whole flower arranged around its golden middle the way you'd gather around a fire. There's nothing shy about it. It isn't waiting for permission. It's just open, completely, gladly, facing the light with everything it has. The water behind it stays dark. It always does - that small, shadowed pond is where this whole thing started, roots reaching down into the cold and the murk. But that's not where your eye goes. Your eye goes where the flower is looking: up, toward the warmth, toward the bright. I think that's why this one makes me so happy. It isn't pretending the dark water isn't there. It's just decided not to face that direction. It turned itself toward the sun instead, and opened all the way, and let itself be glad. Some days that's the whole lesson. You can't drain the pond. But you can choose which way to open.