come away, o human child

Sometimes I can’t stand it here, living so close to my parents, living in such a small town where no one seems to have an open mind and everyone thinks I’m crazy. But sometimes I’m reminded of how lucky I am by how beautiful it really is, that some people don’t have the luxury of slipping their flip-flops off and walking barefoot in the grass to try and catch a grasshopper, just to let it go again. Today my disdain was pushed down once again by the simplicities that surround me everyday. To say I take nature for granted would be an understatement.

Living in Florida my entire life, dusk has always been my favorite time of day. Its just so much cooler, when you can finally get out without feeling a heat stroke coming on. As a child I would play inside or watch tv during the day, but around five o’clock, that’s when things really started to wake up. My cousins would ride their bikes over and that’s when my day seemed to really start. We’d play in the woods, play in my tree house, go bug hunting, you name it. Of course, in the evening is when you’ll see the most wildlife too, so rabbits and deer, raccoons and bats were a regular sighting for us, so normal that we paid them little to no attention. It makes me happy that this is when my own children choose to spend most of their time in the summer as well. When the sun is going down, it casts this gorgeous, golden light all over my backyard. The light is filtered through the pine trees that surround us and it almost looks like the girls are dancing with the myriad of shadows as they jump and skip in the too-high grass. The crickets chirp so loudly in the evenings here its almost hard to hear yourself think and the mosquitos are out for blood quite literally, but while I’m busy with something mundane and domestic, like browning ground turkey on the stove or unloading the dishwasher, I look out of my kitchen window and I find I can’t describe the feelings that wash over me as I see my two girls bathed in that golden light, hair curled up around their ears from the humid evening air, laughing as they swing their legs back – forth – back – forth, talking in secrets that I will never be privy too, unless I’m lucky. And, I think, I certainly am.

From apri09

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