I am sitting on a cold marble bench just outside the Jury Panel room and notice the thick glass walls of the building, the architectural expression of transparency.  This is my first time appearing for jury duty selection. While I am awed and admiring of the process, it is still all uncomfortably new.  I was glad to see outside those glass walls a row of pale yellow daffodils right at the base. They stood around the curved perimeter of the wall, about 10 rows deep,  scattered in uneven columns. The Spring breeze shook their heavy, lacy heads just enough to make them bob up and down, like hordes of people praying at the Wailing Wall. I contemplated their pastel happiness of being free, ruled only by the laws of wind, dirt, and sun.  Such a contrast from the complex yokes we carried around within these walls by people on all sides of our man-made laws.

Suddenly a voice announced that we must enter the room and so I filed in with everyone else, pondering these two distinct worlds of nature and man.  The intangible web of laws suspending and surrounding all of us humans was now to be the matter at hand.  Thank you, beautiful, delicate, sunny daffodils, for gracing me with your beauty before I face whatever serious job lies ahead.

3.29.00