Three straight days of rain and I wake up feeling wet and sloppy.  All the weather reports speak of flooding rivers and winds and woe-is-me attitudes... and I look out my window to see a single daffodil popping its way into bloom in my back yard.  And, suddenly my soul doesn't appear so damp and musty anymore.

A hint of optimism comes over me and I can sense it. Suddenly I can taste a breath of freshness on my tongue, and I can almost smell a barbeque. And, I find myself pondering over whether, we, as human beings, can really undergo some internal change due to the exterior changes of the world around us?  Like, does a little yellow flower in my back yard really have the power to change my outlook on things?  Does it really have that power?

Now, this wasn't the first time I've pondered over such things. But every time I'm moved emotionally and spiritually, like I was moved this morning, it seems as though I'm destined to come to believe in some sort of power that stretches way beyond my reach.  And I enjoy these thoughts over my coffee with cream and an empty house.  I enjoy the quiet and the thoughts of a seasonal world forever changing.

It's an empty house because it's Tuesday, and I usually get 3 or 4 hours of this morning to myself without the screaming children, the chatter of a family, and the mess the oldest one makes before she's off to school.  And I'd be lying if I said I didn't love Tuesday mornings-- this down time of trying to re-introduce myself to myself.  And I can honestly say that when I meet myself again each Tuesday morning, it's usually pretty good and I don't cringe at what I find. Usually.

But then my phone rings and I most certainly hesitate at the thought of the business world interfering with my "me" time. But I answer it anyway, because I am a public servant here to serve the public.

"Do you do rehearsal dinners for forty people?" she asks.

"Why, yes we do," I say. 

"Oh, lovely" she says. "Can I call you back?"

"Of course," I say.

And, as I hang up the phone and slide back in my chair, I can't help but to think of my wedding day and the bow ties and the invitations. The church and the gown. The rings and tuxedoes.  The traveling friends, and those who weren't there due to sickness and/or death.  I think of how she glided down the aisle towards me.  I think of those vows and the meaning then... the meaning now.... I think of how being alone in my house meant something completely different before I was married. 

I think once again about the changing seasons outside my window and how, we, as people, tend to rise and fall with the tides of the exterior world around us.  And then, once again, I look upon that little yellow daffodil that sways in the wind and rain and I slide into my boots before I venture outdoors to pick it.  And later that evening, when my wife comes home to see it above our kitchen sink, she sighs, saying, "Oh, how pretty." 

"It's for you," I say.  "First flower of the season."         

By Jay Cole

Jay Cole is the owner of Riva restaurant in Scituate harbor and has an M.A. in creative writing. As Wink's Male Muse, he entertains us with stories about the women and men who enter his bar.