Jasmine. The smell is intoxicating. Coming up my stairs on a warm spring night and smelling the beautiful perfume of this delicate flower makes me very happy. It’s not the same if you pick it or if it’s bottled as a perfume. You must smell it as it is on the vine. That is its strength. It has the control to act exactly as it wants. No one tells it when it can bloom and when it dies. It is on its own schedule. The blooms don’t last forever but the sheer knowledge knowing that it will return is enough. Now that is freedom.
I’m trying to look at my life like jasmine. I have the power in myself to control how I feel and how I act. I also have to take responsibility for when I screw up and when I am true to myself. When to walk away and when to know it’s better to stick it out. I’m still trying to learn that lesson and it’s not very easy. The demons and voices in my head still trying to win out. We are surrounded right now by a lot of crazy stuff. I can find myself going down that rabbit hole. Getting caught up in all of the fear and uncertainty of what another day is going to bring. Age does that. It makes you face things you use to put aside when you were younger. There was always time before to work things out (you told younger self) but now I can feel time. Trying to drown out the clock ticking by a fountain in my office. Sometimes it works and sometimes I find myself looking at the clock more than I should.
This year there is a massive amount of butterflies out especially now that we are getting a bit of warmer weather. There are so many of them I can hear their wings flutter. They are so beautiful and so precious. As is the jasmine. So I am stopping to smell the jasmine. I suggest you also my friends, take time to smell the jasmine.
It’s been awhile. Actually it’s been months. It’s my habit to start something, go full force and then life takes over. But that’s the problem. I let life take over. I mean work life. Too much work. Not enough life. I spoke to a psychic (I know so 2017) and she noted that the left (work )side of my chart was full. Very full. My right (fun) side? Empty. I mean blank. Nothing. Nada. 
I was recently at one of the most beautiful weddings I’ve ever been to. Can’t say I’ve been to many but this one was very special. It wasn’t just because it was my son’s but because so much care was put into the entire event. I say event because that is the best way to describe it.