Me to a tree and back again

Anxiety fills my chest.
Why have you come to linger here today?
Once in a while it comes to visit me,
it doesn’t stay,
too long,
but it is an annoyance, nonetheless.

Things appear to be great.
My courtyard is sprinkled with cherry blossoms.
A gust of wind creates a snowfall of petals.

I walk by the same smiley, old man every day.
He stands at his bus stop as I head off to work.
Stepping out to meet me on the sidewalk,
he looks at me head on and smiles.
We smile and give a slight bow.
High Five! Slap!
Or a gentle handshake some days as I walk on by.
I don’t stop to say hi,
I just keep moving, smiling too now.

A warm breeze blows and in comes the yellow dust with it.
How bad is that stuff anyways?
Some days I can see the small mountains in the distance, oh so clearly.
And other days it is a misty mystery as to what lies down yonder.

I walk by the purple budding flowers,
snap,
take a picture, it will last longer.
So, I do.

Babies breath... is that babies breath I see?
No, no I don’t think so... but I thought so.
Do babies breathes smell as sweet as that flower looks?
I think their breath smells more like sour milk, mixed with magic babiness that makes it smell sweeter than you would imagine.
Or it really smells like sour milk and baby cookies.

The grasshoppers have started rubbing and humming again,
I can hear them at night when I am out and about.
It makes me think of France or other places,
it makes me feel like I am on vacation.
Sometimes I think I am on vacation.

How does a person go back to their old life,
after living this life here?
What is my old life? What is this life?
What is real and what is part of the “vacation”?

I look forward to the weekends here like I never have before.
What will I look forward to in the future?
I suppose I could keep focusing on the little, beautiful things that are all around me.

I have meaningful interactions with people everyday here.
I believe that I have taken them for granted some days.
I try to constantly appreciate everything that goes on around me.

Like the smiley, old man.
Or, my children, who look up to me and some days I feel things for them that are not very nice... and I don’t know why I feel this way.
I am here to teach them and some days I think that they made me come here and teach them... and I will resent them for that, because some days I don’t like my job and it’s not fair to them.
I don’t know how much of me they see when I am feeling this way,
I always try to mask it, at least for the most part.

But when I think about them in moments like these,
I feel genuine appreciation and I would even go so far as to say, a certain type of love for them.

I buy milk from the same man every day.
He speaks English and we talk a little here and there,
usually about the same old things.
But as I approach his store, I get excited to go in and say hi.
And he always kinda chuckles because I am so predictable,
buying the same small milk every day, for my cereal.

My anxiety is gone now... as will be the petals on the blossom trees.