Morning has Broken

Once in a great while you can hear a Cat Stevens song on an old rock station. Whenever they play "Morning has broken", it takes me back to the sweet room in my host sister's room in Chicago in 1973. She and I shared her beautiful bedroom that summer for six weeks, and she had a record player in it, and she often played her Cat Stevens album that played "Morning has broken ", as one of the featured songs. To me, that song continues to hold all the sweet promise of being excited about learning about living in the US, and anticipating maybe living there some day for good. Now that I am into my 36th year in the US. I certainly have had the chance to find out about living here, and becoming a citizen on September 29th, 1994. It is nostalgic to hear the song once in a while, and as it turns out, I am a morning person, who loves to enjoy a walk in the garden very early on with my gentle dog Yara. It was a beautiful, sunny morning just two days ago and the air was sweet and warm, and without any warning the song "Morning has broken" started playing in my mind, and I realized that some of those sweet dreams I had did come true. I have a good husband, a wonderful son, a cozy, safe home and sweet pets, and a garden my husband Michael built for us that is a slice of peace and poetry in a busy world. The green house, that with its floor to ceiling glass windows gives a great view of the garden, and fresh strawberries, cucumbers and tomatoes. Next to the green house is the vegetable garden, where we grow pumpkins and beets and green beans and snap peas, and at the end of the vegetable garden are our fruit bushes, the blueberries, and raspberries and red and black currants and even a vine that grows a sweet Muscat grape. Then you walk into the patio and the deck Michael and my father built in 1994, with all the 16 different kinds of pansies, which makes for a rainbow of color, even on the rainiest of summer days. Then there are the lilies and rhododendron bushes and  the ferns, and Nicholas' playhouse, a souvenir of his childhood, that Michael built when our son was three, complete with a shuttered little window, a second story and a slide. Then there is also the pool, from which the garden looks like a bit of a lush jungle. And last but not least, there are the 9 live Christmas trees that we have planted over the last 23 years , and that now tower over us. Morning has broken, indeed, ..."sing jubilation"..., for all is well. I am 55 now, but my heart still bursts with joy and pride and hope at the realization that these 36 years in America turned out just fine, and that the dreams we hold at 16 don't have to die.