My Red Tree

I am not turning on the news today. I am not reading the news today. For a change I am going to believe, just this once, that there is something more to this world, and to life.

I want to look up and see the clouds. Instead of reading about terrorists. I want to feel the sun, and touch the grass, and not think about the graves or the people dying. For today I am free. Free of my responsibility to this world, to humanity. Free of the burden the lack of hope.

Tonight, when I lay my head on my pillow. I want to dream, of birds singing, and the simple joy of setting beneath a tree with a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. The peace of heaven touching down, as a crescent moon bathes the sky. I don’t want to hear the screams, or see the hurt. For just one day, I want to believe. Believe that there is so much more. Found in the simple things, that we pass by each day.

For tomorrow I will hear it again, see it, and feel it. It will be a part of my life, of all our lives, as always. But maybe, if we just take some of that simple peace along with us, if we let it walk hand in hand. Just maybe someday, it will become stronger, and far outweigh the rest.

The other day while running a few errands in a torrential downpour, I stopped by my local post office to send off some packages. While racing to the door I nearly collided with a small child about five or six years old. She had a little red umbrella and looking up at me she smiled and said “look it’s raining” as if it was the first time, and something to be enjoyed. I pushed past in my hurry, and waited in line to reach the counter. In my opinion random children were always a nuisance, and behaved terribly in public places, it never ceased to amaze me how some of them will wail for a simple candy bar, or just throw a fit all together for no apparent reason. I had made it a practice long ago to simply ignore them all together.

Tapping my foot as I waited for the clerk to pound the postage on my packages, I looked down, and there she was again. Nerve-racking little thing I thought to myself. But then I noticed what she was doing. There was a bowl of candy on the counter, and she was reaching to take some. I was surprised to see she helped herself to only one, and as she walked away, there beside the bowl remained two small, somewhat crushed, wild flowers. I’m not usually sentimental, but that was sweet.

As I pulled out of the parking lot, there she was splashing in the puddles, twirling her little red umbrella. A child’s philosophy on life is truly something to marvel at. Here she was enjoying the rain, that I was loathing, and in her way, she taught me something, that I took home with me. You can take, from this crazy mixed up business we call life, by all means, but you must also give. If only we all could be that innocent, or at least not be afraid to get our feet a little wet.