Ecstatic, as usual

Every week Margie’s daughter buys fresh cut flowers for Margie's living room, and this week’s bouquet includes freesia and lilies. She pointed them out to me and then asked me what month it is. I said May, rounding up. 

“Ah, May,” she said, clapping her hands. “May comes before June, and June means the end of school and going to Camp Mikan. The only thing I like better than May is June.”

I asked what she remembers from May in her childhood. “Not much,” she told me, chuckling. “Mostly I remember May because it means summer is coming. And look. It still is. All the changes, but May still means that summer is coming.”

After our coffee, we took a walk in the North Park Blocks, a grassy area with massive old plane trees. 

“Look,” she said, gazing up into the trees. “All that life! It will go on without us, whatever happens. Isn’t that wonderful!”

Margie’s enthusiasm reminds me of the etymology of that word: to be filled with divine energy.