Trent, over at his blog, often posts about things that make him to smile. It’s part of a weekly thing that I haven’t been organized enough to participate in regularly.

It’s not that I don’t have things to smile about. It’s just that I can’t seem to coordinate that event with writing a post about it. Because usually the events that make me smile are small, almost imperceptible, and they often get lost in the bigger things that color my days.

But this afternoon while I was weeding the gardens surrounding our house, I started to grin. I have to say they are beautiful this year. And that alone should make me smile.

But my smile for this week was more specific.

So anyway, I was weeding a garden I generally ignore. A couple decades ago this was a vegetable garden but it turned out the sun beating on the back of the garage was too hot, so for the last several years we’ve been tossing in ‘wildflower’ seed, sometimes purchased from the Vermont Seed Company, sometimes purchased from Home Depot.

I can’t honestly remember where this year’s seeds came from, but they look to be mostly coreopsis and zinnia. Most year I totally ignore this once the flowers are up. But this afternoon I ventured in, intent on pulling out some really tall weeds.

The garden wasn’t designed for people to walk in it, so I was picking my way through, trying to do the least amount of damage with my big feet, pushing aside the tall zinnias which are taller than me.

I suddenly felt like I was doing the breast stroke among the blossoms, pushing them aside to move forward in the sea of pink and red and yellow. I thought of my friend, Bob, and how he’d have liked that turn of phrase, swimming in the sea of zinnias. How he probably would have commented on it, and the pictures of flowers growing here.

And I smiled.