There are moments in life that don’t announce themselves. They don’t arrive with noise or crowds or applause. They happen quietly. I was out rowing the other morning, in front of the Straz Center, just before the Cass Street Bridge. The water was calm, the wind was light, and the sun had barely begun to rise. We paused our boat to wait for our coach to catch up to us, and then suddenly a dolphin popped out of the water not three feet from the stern of the boat. It passed so close to our little boat that it swam just under my left hand.
We see dolphins all the time, but usually they are across the river, and you barely glimpse them. Being so close to this one just made me feel lucky. It made me think, “I am lucky that I get to be right here, right now, doing this.” It’s so easy to get caught up in the stress of life. To fret about the details of everything. We get wound up tight when most of those things, in the end, don’t really matter. So, in that moment, I smiled big. I could see dolphins dancing and jumping a hundred more times and it would still bring me that warm feeling of joy.
Sometimes, the most extraordinary thing in the world is simply being exactly where you are and noticing it. I wish I could have gotten a picture, but that would have spoiled the moment, so you’ll just have to imagine what it was like!
And you never know where those little moments will creep up, but one place you may find them is in your garden. As we come off historic cold temps and head into the spring season, it’s time to have some fun and create some joy in our gardens.
This Saturday, we’re swapping dancing with dolphins for some actual line dancing with Miss Emily at our Garden Hoedown, kicking off spring at Kerby’s Nursery with a little Boot Scootin’ Boogie.
Of course, we are a garden center, so before we boogie, we are going to teach you all about spring veggie gardening in Florida and how to plant a garden that will give you abundant harvests of tasty peppers and juicy tomatoes. The seminar will be at 10 am, and line dancing will immediately follow at 11:30.
And while veggie gardening often kicks off our spring season, we know that after the cold you’ve got a lot of work to do to get your landscapes back in shape. The nursery is filling up with bright spring flowers and cold-hardy favorites. So join us for some dancing and to work on creating and recognizing the moments that bring us joy in our lives lived outside.
