Both the Weekly Photo Challenge (Letters) and yesterday’s Daily Prompt (It’s My Party) got me thinking about a gift I was given on my 40th birthday. When I turned the big 4-0, I was working as the director of an AmeriCorps program. One of my staff came up with a clever idea to have everyone in the group, more than thirty people, would give me gifts in the amount of…you guessed it, 40.

I got 40 slices of Vermont Country Bread, 40 teabags, 40 Band-Aids (x 3), 40 pony tail holders, 40 post-it notes; you get the idea, I went home with enough stuff to put in my kitchen and bathroom to last me a few months.   One of the particularly crafty members of the group found for me a 40-word poem. She cleverly wrote it out on 40 hearts and placed it little wooden box she’d painted in a bright pink and green.

I’ve kept the box with the poem in it for the last 11 years. I took it out recently to use at a workshop I was leading. I’ve shared it another half-dozen times in the last two weeks and have enjoyed it each time I read it aloud. Please enjoy it for yourself and think of “LT” who so generously gifted it to me at a big moment in my life.

 

 

In case you can’t read the little hearts, here’s the poem:

Never underestimate the power of emotion, passion.

Never under-estimate the power of energy; vibrant charges; sparks flying everywhere.

Never under-estimate my power as a woman to be free.

Happy, crazed, infused with spices and time, sweet and succulent.

Wendy Sealey