Dear President Trump,

Today is Laura’s birthday. She doesn’t like there to be a fuss at all so I cut some roses from our garden before she got up and put them in a vase for her along with a card I made out of an old print that had “June” incorporated into the design. She was pleased.

In keeping with the low-key celebratory feel of the morning I’m going to tell you about two low-key cool things from yesterday. First, as I was driving past the VA on my way home from work I noticed a young man dressed in blue scrubs near a small tree on an embankment adjacent to one of the parking lots. His backpack was on the ground and he was kneeling down arranging something. I couldn’t tell exactly what he was doing, but I think he was arranging a prayer rug at the base of the tree. It was a dark red or maroon piece of fabric and he was being careful to align it East/West. I was on a residential street and driving slowly, but I still moved by too quickly to see if he did, in fact, do an evening prayer there. It was about 4:54. I hope what I think I was seeing is what I was seeing, that this man, who was clearly leaving his shift at the VA, felt safe and comfortable enough to set out his prayer rug for his early evening prayer there on the edges of the VA grounds.

The second thing to tell you about happened when I took the dogs for their evening walk at about 8:54 (really). A hummingbird was making its super-fast tic-tic-tic sound but at first I couldn’t find it. Eventually I spotted it sitting up on a wire just above our back gate. This was pretty cool but not really all that unusual. As you may (or may not) know, hummingbirds sit still for remarkably long periods of time fairly frequently. What was odd was that there was a crow sitting quietly watching the hummingbird from an adjacent wire about 10 feet away. It was so cool to see them both sitting there, one tiny and one relatively huge, just hanging out in near-space with one another. I’ve never seen that before. Unfortunately I didn’t have my phone with me so I couldn’t take a picture of them, but now having written you about it, this little treasure is preserved alongside the larger one from earlier in the day.

May we all be safe to see what is going on around us.
May we allow ourselves to enjoy unexpected treasures.
May we express gratitude to the universe in whatever ways are healthy for us.
May we coexist peacefully like a certain hummingbird and a certain crow did yesterday.

Sincerely,
Tracy Simpson