Daffodil Moments

Last year I wrote about daffodil moments, and my blog is full of them. Here is the story of the origins of the phrase.

Teacups: 2011

Two and a half years ago I was standing in line with my kids waiting for our turn to ride the Teacups at Disneyland. It was February and we had driven to the Magic Kingdom from Iowa. Iowa is miserable in February. If there is any redeeming quality about Iowa during the month of February, I never found it. Iowa February is bitter cold, icy winds, and snow on my lawn that has been there since Thanksgiving. Needless to say, the blossoms and blooms that abound in Southern California's early spring were a delightfully uplifting reprieve. Even the older boys were finding joy in the splendor of spring.

2011: Stella had no interest in meeting princesses (believe me, I tried) she just wanted to meet the classic characters

Where was I? Oh, yes, the teacups. I was standing in line at the Teacups shuffling kids along their way so that we didn't let the space in front of us get so big that it started to bother the people behind us. That was where Stella noticed the daffodils. She started tugging on my jacket and pointing out the yellow trumpets and before I knew it she was reciting the poem "Daffodils" by William Wordsworth.

From memory.

I couldn't believe it. My little first grader had taken it upon herself to read and memorize poetry. Oh be still my heart. If there was ever a moment that I felt justified in my book-buying habit that was it.

2011: Love these kids

I think about that experience a lot. I return to it again and again. Since then, she and I have coined the phrase "Daffodil Moments" for times when we feel joyful and grateful. Sometimes we look at each other knowingly and one of us says with a smile "daffodil moment." Daffodil Moments are times that we don't want to forget, moments that we want to file away in our memory so we may access them when we are feeling "vacant" or "pensive" so that our hearts can be filled with pleasure and "dance with the daffodils" just like Mr. Wordsworth's.

Daffodils

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed--and gazed--but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils. 

William Wordsworth