Remember that time when you were a kid and you just knew that everything was ok. You knew it by not knowing it, not even thinking about it. You were alive, and you never doubted it. You trusted that you’d be taken care of because you always had been. But then you began to hear stories of times when everything wasn’t ok, ya know, with other people. Not you. Never you. And the older you got the more you started to believe these stories. And eventually you forgot that everything was ok and you believed the stories that told you that everything is not ok- that in fact nothing is ok and if you think it is then there’s something wrong with you. But it’s not true- i’m here to tell you that. Everything is ok. Just like you always believed it was. It doesn’t always look ok. But good, or love, or whatever you call it really does always win in the end, ya know, in real life. Everybody knows it. Somewhere. So anyway- I keep remembering this time when I was a kid, we lived at Memorial Glenn at th’ time so I must’ve been around seven years old. I kept having this powerful feeling come over me. I don’t think I could ever explain this feeling, sorta like you can never really describe a dream, but it felt something like, You’re alive- and you can do whatever you want- now go, and live. And that’s exactly what I did- I went and I lived. I did whatever popped into my head to do. I made good choices and bad choices. I regret some things and some i’d never change. Often- more so the older I get- I forget about this great commission that I once felt driven by, to go forth and live- and when I do things don’t go so well. But I have kids now to remind me. They are in that stage of life, and they help me to remember, to see, that life truly is a gift. That adventure waits around every corner. That love is contagious, and that, while it doesn’t always appear to be the strongest force in our lives, it waits, patiently, and is there in the end, when everything else has faded away.
Tales from th' Trails 