Jewels of Joy
The hillside that borders my driveway is peppered with hundreds of orange and yellow jewelweed blossoms, tiny blooms no bigger than my thumbnail. The bumblebees love them, diving deep into the flowers’ throats until only their fuzzy tails and back legs stick out.
Along with the wild yarrow, goldenrod and Queen Anne’s lace, the jewelweed marks the last of the summer’s floral bouquet. I think of its blossoms as jewels of joy, and imagine that invisible fairies dance in its dew-sparkled leaves in the morning to the jingle of the little bells that hang suspended in the blossoms’ petals.
The fantasy quickly fades as I pull onto the highway and crawl to work through construction zones, listening to the morning’s news on the radio. Unemployment up; the markets down. The usual local mayhem and threats of impending global doom.
An ambulance sits at our clinic’s curb. Already, I see, the crisis department is shipping the day’s first client off to the inpatient unit at the hospital.
The women at the front desk smile as I walk in the front door, looking like angels. A vision of the joy jewels flashes through my mind again, as I greet them. A little clump of nurses is gathered by the case worker’s door, their voices and gentle laughter pouring softly down the carpeted hall.
I climb the stairs to my office, and because it’s such a lovely morning, decide I’ll open my window to let in the birdsong and air. One of our buses is loading the abused and neglected little kids who attend our county-sponsored summer program. Must be a field trip day. The last two in line are wearing orange and yellow. They giggle as they climb aboard, holding the teachers’ hands. And I see little jewels of joy.
Posted in 
