Yesterday morning I was making my way to the office along my usual route. I was taking in the piles of dirty snow and general grayness of day's beginning. I was listening to my usual radio station which was delivering its normal banter. I was thinking of the details of the day ahead with a certain 'ho-hum' nature. It was Monday after all and I knew what every Monday holds, which meetings will happen when, the cleanup of the aftermath of any given Sunday. Plainly put, it was shaping up to be a regular, normal, nothing-out-of-the-ordinary Monday.

And then, boom, my eyes beheld a giant lemon! Sitting in the driveway of a house I pass numerous times during any given week, there sat a giant lemon shaped structure. It was the size of a small camper or, dare I say it, ice fishing house! It was shiny and looked new. It sat on a nice green platform as if this giant lemon had fallen from an even more enormous lemon tree onto a bed of newly cut grass. The brilliant yellow of the lemon was such a shock to my eyes,now so accustomed to the blur of winter white, that I shook my head to see if I was hallucinating. But no, there is was a giant lemon showing itself on the first day of March. It seemed to say:"Look out! Summer is on its way!" On further inspection I saw a window in the lemon, obviously an entrance for people to order lemonade and an exit for the sweet, sugary drink of warm days. 

I laughed out loud. This unexpected sight set the tone for my day. It helped to remind me that there are surprises waiting to delight us, to jar us out of the routine we cling to. These surprises can bring us the gift of seeing what has been too familiar, boring even, in new and exciting ways. It is the basis of all creativity to see the world in this way. It is, I like to believe, the way children still walk in the world. It is a practice most adults need to recapture to help them see the world that has become too static in new ways. Seeing the giant lemon certainly did that to my usual Monday.

What surprises have you seen lately? What experiences have jarred you out of the routine of a typical winter, a regular work day? We cannot manufacture surprises and the gifts they bring. But we can all walk into each day with eyes wide open to what the world might bring. The giant lemon helped me to be open to other little touches that made my Monday, the first day of March, a day like no other. It was a day that held lots of laughter with my co-workers, big belly laughs. It also held a few tears as I met with someone who had lost a loved one, as we planned to keep their memory. As I read a wonderful book about feeding people and the true meaning of communion, I noticed that some refraction of light had caused a rainbow to form on the surface of my creamed tea. It was so beautiful and then I drank from my tea cup. I like to think that rainbow is now inside of me. I came home to find the amaryllis that is reaching toward its fullness even taller than yesterday. So many things to notice on any given day. 

And to think it all started with a giant lemon……..It was just what I needed.

"Mystery is at the heart of creativity. That, and surprise."~Julia Cameron