flowers of quiet happiness

last night i finished reading anne of green gables. if you can believe it, it’s my first time. surely anne and i are kindred spirits – i’ve so enjoyed relating with her zest and drama as the text has transported me to prince edward island. i love, loved the end of the book – that i got to see anne grow up and embrace the paradoxical beauty of hardship and of adventures that are not exotic but are all-the-more amazing for that.

 

these tidbits from the last pages were so good, i had to share:

but anne, with her elbows on the window sill, her soft cheek laid against her clasped hands, and her eyes filled with visions, looked out unheedingly across city roof and spire to that glorious dome of sunset sky and wove her dreams of a possible future from the golden tissue of youth’s own optimism. all the beyond was hers with its possibilities lurking rosily in the oncoming years – each year a rose of promise to be woven into an immortal chaplet.

the west was a glory of soft mingled hues, and the pond reflected them all in still softer shadings. the beauty of it all thrilled anne’s heart, and she gratefully opened the gates of her soul to it.

“when i left queen’s my future seemed to stretch out before me like a straight road. i thought i could see along it for many a milestone. now there is a bend in it. i don’t know what lies around the bend, but i’m going to believe that the best does. it has a fascination of its own, that bend. i wonder how the road beyond it goes – what there is of green glory and soft, checkered light and shadows – what new landscapes – what new beauties – what curves and hills and valleys and further on.”

anne’s horizons had closed in since the night she had sat there after coming home from queen’s; but if the path set before her feet was to be narrow she knew that flowers of quiet happiness would bloom along it. the joy of sincere work and worthy aspiration and congenial friendship were to be hers; nothing could rob her of her birthright of fancy or her ideal world of dreams. and there was always the bend in the road!
“god’s in his heaven, all’s right with the world,” whispered anne softly.

during my current slice of mortality, i feel that i am really being stretched, facing a lot of uncertainty and experiencing a lot of anxiety. i am impressed by the hope and faith that i feel surging in me. i feel sure about the divine, and i am somehow grateful for and exhilarated by the stretch.

with anne, i’m realizing that surely there’s a wonderful magic in the anticipation of what’s around the bend in the road. and no matter how narrow the path, there will always be flowers of quiet happiness blooming along it.