Even though I didn’t plant this tulip, our gardens are off to a great start. Florence planted this flower some time ago, and it just popped up on the lawn. I snipped it to bring it into my office, and it is migrating around the farmhouse.  It showed up in the living room by the morning sun and opened up before my eyes. It reminded me to open up. I think the hardest and most important work I have done in my life has been in opening up – to love, to Maria, to new experience, to my daughter, the animals and the dogs.

Opening up is hard work, especially for men. The only men I like tend to be those who were tortured as children or humiliated as adults. They open up – to friendship, connection, they learn to listen. The tulip is something else I have opened up to, and it has opened up for me. An inspiration. There is so much life to live if I open up to it.