Go barefoot in the wet grass.
Don’t wait until all the problems are solved,
Or all the bills are paid.
You will wait forever.
Eternity will come and go and you will still be waiting.
Live in the now,
with all its problems and its agonies,
with joy,
And its pain.
Celebrate your pain,
Your despair,
Your anger.
It means you’re alive.
Look closer.
Breathe deeper.
Stand taller.
Stop grieving the past.
There is joy and beauty.
Today.
It is temporary,
Here now and gone.
So celebrate it
While you can.
Celebrate the temporary.
From Vicki Stigen in Germany: The first line grabbed my attention. It rains so much here that I feel like I’m in an African rainy season. Being a tidy type of person, it’s easy for me to confine Christy (and myself) indoors. I don’t want to deal with all the mess and mud. On her third birthday, I did let Christy go out with the neighbor kids. They literally rolled in the mud. As I watched from the window, I resolved to let them be; let them live life to the full. Now there are stains that refuse to come out of the clothes, but, more importantly, there are memories of fun that refuse to be erased too. This whole idea of enjoying temporary living hits home as I think of the likelihood of an upcoming move. As I wait to find out where and when, it’s easy to shell-up inside my home, refusing to touch other lives. It’s painful to start and stop and start again – to not have deep roots. It doesn’t matter though. I have today. I must remove my shoes and make memories each day.
This article is a classic originally published in our early print magazines.
View the original print magazine where this article was first published.
