Expect nothing. Live frugally on surprise. – Alice Walker
Surprised by Color - Peacock!
I visited recently for a delicious heritage food dinner cooked over an open fire, and upon entering this place of most beautiful of gardens, I was surprised to be greeted near my car by strutting peacocks! Fantastically colored peacocks, roaming in the yard!
Thanksgiving recently made me think about gratitude, so a bit of sleuthing turned up surprise as one key to the virtue. A book by the wise David Steindl-Rast sits on my bedside table right now. Art, too, gets made when one is most alive. And awake to wonder.
“Have you ever noticed how your eyes open a bit wider when you are surprised?” he writes in Common Sense Spirituality: The Essential Wisdom, “It is as if you had been asleep, merely daydreaming or sleepwalking through some routine activity, and then you hear your favorite record on the radio, or you look up from the puddles on the parking lot and see a rainbow, or the telephone rings and it’s the voice of an old friend, and all of a sudden you’re awake. Even an unwelcome surprise shakes us out of complacency and makes us come alive. We may not like it at first, but looking back, we can always recognize it as a gift. Humdrum equals deadness; surprise equals life. In fact, my favorite name for the One I worship in wonder — the only name that does not limit God — is Surprise.
One of several Slave Cabins. Magnolia Plantation
He writes that surprise does not make us automatically alive. Aliveness is a matter of give-and-take, of response. If we allow surprise merely to baffle us, it will stun us and stunt our growth. But as it also involves editing I think, like one does as a photographer. The secret is editing down to the best. And as they wisely say 12 Steps, Take what you will and leave the rest. “Every surprise is a challenge to trust in life and so to grow. Surprise is a seed. Gratefulness sprouts when we rise to the challenge of surprise. The great ones in the realm of Spirit are so intensely alive because they are so deeply grateful.” Wow.
Cheers from the Lowcountry this fine, cold December Day. May this month bring nothing but surprises.
I was called to be an artist. And as an old old midwife said to me "If the Lord wants you to do something, you won't have no good luck' til you do." So, here I am, sharing what I love, longing to illuminate the work of art, which is everywhere.
Charleston Through an Artist's eye 
Great essay Charlotte. There’s so much to be surprised about, that it’s really up to us isn’t it? If we could live each day as though it was our last, I bet we’d have few in any regrets.
Let’s do it.