“Today is just a plain ordinary day.”

I have writer’s block and this is the first thing that came to mind.

When I was nine, I got a five-year diary for my birthday. Each space had only four lines to write on, which is just ridiculous, but some days those blank lines stared at me, mocking my dull existence. So I’d write “Today was just a plain ordinary day.” After all, and don’t ask me why, I had to write something. Talk about sucking the joy out of writing.

Eventually I figured out that some days I would have more things to say and need more than four lines with which to say them, so I started to forego the “ordinary day” mantra and just left it blank, banking the space for the good stuff of another year. Why should someone else’s template of a five-year diary keep me in a strait jacket?

Why, indeed? Why did I not just chuck the thing and buy a steno pad to write in? Well, because my Aunt Edith had given me the diary as a gift and spent her perfectly good money on it. I loved her, and I would use it, by gum.

I long ago threw that diary away. I’m sorry I did, because as embarrassing as it might be, it was evidence of the girl who still lives inside me. Some days I struggle to get back in touch with her, and a read through that old diary might help. Might even break loose my dammed up flow.

For now, in what should be a more wise place, remembering that diary spurs me to ask this question: What about today is not plain and not ordinary, or at least worth noticing?

Today the redbud trees and flowering plums and greens from citrus to almost red are brilliant. In a few days they’ll begin to soften and blend.

Today at church the welcoming smiles and words of Karen and Jeff, Brenda and George, warmed us.

 Today, driving by fields, we saw brand-new calves getting used to this big world. Nothing about their day is plain or ordinary.

I will notice, and I will write. I will try.