Be Like the Little Girl…
I saw a quote the other day pass by on my Pinterest feed:
“Go back. Way back. To that little girl walking around barefoot on the sidewalk in the summer sun. Worry less. Be like her.” (Shehaus.com)
I didn’t really have a sidewalk. I had a 52-acre farm I was raised on but going barefoot in the country grass was definitely a fond memory.
I recall the lack of burdens I had back then. My biggest to-dos were my homework and my chores. The rest of my time was spent pretty much however I liked. We were not a TV-watching household. So that was off limits most of the time. And much of my growing up was before the popularity of computers, and definitely before the common existence of mobile devices.
In between chores and homework, I could re-organize my room. I worked on craft projects. There was a period of time when I wrote poetry while swinging on our swing tied to a huge maple tree. I spent time with our calves. Mom would sneak in helping her in the garden. Or helping with canning the garden harvests.
My growing up years were so very different from my friends at school. They lived in neighborhoods. They had built in friends as neighbors. They went to each other’s houses after school. They really did have sidewalks. It took them 15 minutes to get home from school.
I look back and just love those years probably more now than I even did then. Our closest neighbor was a quarter mile away. Some of our neighbors were farmers. While we lived on a lot of acreage and had cows and gardens, we didn’t make a living from it. My closest friend was a few miles away. When I came home from school, unless I had a school event or a piano lessons, we were in for the night. We didn’t have sidewalks, but I’ll take those acres over sidewalks any day. It took us over an hour to take the buses home from school.
It’s all perspective. I was a happy kid. I crafted up things to do. I was an avid reader. I can still picture that swing hanging from the old maple tree. If you started swinging too wonky on it, you’d hit the trunk and leave a gash….in either the trunk, or your leg.
Eventually, we put in a concrete basketball court. So I’d spend some of my time perfecting my shot. Re-playing last-second shot scenarios in my head where I’d throw up the winning shot. Blare some music while by older brother and I did our fancy footwork on the court. (His was fancy. Mine was, well, let’s just say not so fancy.)
We played ‘track’ in the front yard. We’d stack up empty coffee cans — back then they were metal – and we’d set a board across the top and set up ‘hurdles’. We’d time each other.
We rode bikes on old country roads, paying special attention to those houses that had the rogue dogs that would chase us. We would try to time our passing so the dog was looking the other way.
Our own dogs were for both pets and protection. Dusty our hound dog, Duke and Duchess our German Shepherds. A few cats. A couple of wild bunnies. And a random parakeet.
My siblings were my friends, and my competition. No one took it easy on me because I was a girl. They never, and I mean never, let me win at something just because I was a girl. If I won, they either had a really bad day, or I got really lucky. LOL. Every once in a while my talent and effort outdid theirs. And if I would have had a girl, I would have wanted it to be the same way. No easy street. You worked for what you earned.
We lived simply. Our house was simple but was a home. Things didn’t always go perfectly, but perfectly isn’t what creates a life well-lived. It’s not what creates the memories of home. It’s the imperfections that add the spice and character to our lives.
How many of us would love to go back to those days? To live one day or a week like our 9-year old self. No mortgage, no retirement account contributions, no utility bills, no incessant cell phone distractions. No work commute. Just nature. A swing tied to a maple tree beckoning for someone to come join her. A smorgasbord of activities to participate in. No worries other than whether you studied enough for your next math test.
You just really never know how good you have it, until it’s gone. So let’s all take a moment, or two, and appreciate where we are Now. Appreciate those things that when you look back in 10 or 20 years, you’ll wished you had appreciated more today.
