If All Else Fails....

Diana's Garden

Plant yourself a garden. Today. No flowers? No problem. Choose a flower pot and just start sticking pretty things in it. Fake flowers are fine. Use what you have, and be creative.

Cheer yourself up. Let yourself smile. Pretend like you are 6 years old and have a good time.

Then quietly check in with your mood. How do you feel? Pleasant? Or unpleasant?

My Dharma friend, Diana's garden definitely makes me smile.

Old Potatoes

All my red potatoes have sprouted down in the basement, even though i covered them with a towel to keep them in the dark.

Planting season is 3 months away, so i won't keep them for seed potatoes--although that idea is quite enticing.

Instead, i'm cutting off the sprouts and grating up those wrinkled red skins to make hash brown potatoes. Yes, the skins are wrinkled. They look old. The potatoes are not pretty, but they still are a vegetable contributing to my well-being.

We get old and wrinkled too. We sprout hairs in unexpected places. We sprout brown spots in unwanted places. But we are still good for something.

An old person eating old potatoes. Why not?