The Yellow Lily Of SoDo

So I was walking home from work last night, and somewhere near Qwest Field I thought of a great topic for today's blog. Jot it down on something, said the rational and logical voice that man I'm so good at ignoring. And ignore it I did. I'll remember it, the care free and live for today voice said. I even gave myself small mental cues to remember it.

So on the way in today I thought to myself, "Hey, remember that great idea you had?" Nope, no idea. I tried raking through the mess up there, but eventually just gave up and wrapped myself in the sweet sound of The Wrens.

For some reason, my mind wants me to believe that it has something to do with the Pixies album Trompe Le Monde.

I know this about myself, that I'm forgetful, that if I don't write down ideas I will forget them. I tell myself that I will forget and still do not write it down. I think that it's somehow connected to the addictive side of my mind. It's the same rational logical voice that I ignore that says, "You cannot just have one cigarette and stop", or "you cannot go back and just do one more trick as a male prostitute.”

I got close to work and tried once again, in vain, to remember the idea. I thought about things I had done last night that I could talk about. Sweating? Reading in the back alley so that sweat would evaporate? Watching Sunset Boulevard on the laptop while Beth was watching Six Feet Under in the living room as I don't want to get hooked into watching another television series?

I sat down on this little concrete bench that is across from the building. I sit there nearly every morning in an attempt to cool down from the walk in. The bench is surrounded by landscaping grasses - this is not like your ghetto grass that just grows anywhere, this is specialty grass that you pay for. The grass is really tall right now, as tall as my head when I'm sitting, and sort of hides the bench.

What I saw today for the first time, as if it had just come up this morning, was a bright yellow lily growing in the middle of all that ornamental grass. I sort of did a double take, wondering if it was really there. As I said, I had never seen the flower before and it seemed hard to believe that it would spring up overnight. And it was this crazy yellow! I've never seen a lily this color before and it was literally breath taking.

I sat there for another minute, The Wrens still playing, just staring at this flower that seemed so mysterious somehow. It felt like a special little something for me, a gift for looking in the right direction. That poor abused and neglected rational and logical voice let me know that sometimes it really is just the little things in life.

So I'm writing it down...