Tuesday I saved a little girl's life. Yesterday I sun bathed in the beckoning sun while no one attended the beach, and today I was saved from being impaled by a strong and stationary (or so I thought) lifeguarding chair while illustrating. This week, and especially these past few days have been pretty incredible. Quiet, simple, and restful. To say the least, Pennsylvania has been getting the best of me. Now that's something I never thought I'd say before I went to college in the big apple, and something I think about more often than not now that I'm home for summer break. Keep Pennsylvania Beautiful. Those signs all over the high ways and disheveled twisty roads? Yeah, they make their mark. Pennsylvania truly is beautiful. I can stare at the wispy clouds for hours, and I usually do since I lifeguard on the open waterfront of the beach in my community that's full of caring and quiet retired folk and families who arrive on the weekends to catch the sun's rays, watching their children squeal in the cool and earthy lake. The only litter I find is a sand filled cap of a Corona light or a cigarette butt (possibly some dinosaurs, the plastic kind)-two things I don't necessarily enjoy but it's better than piles of McDonald's trash and old items I can't recognize smelling of smog, death and pooled in a murky puddle. I can sing in the quiet as the notes lilt upon the breeze and make their home in the ever-growing pine trees. Pine needles. Fresh breaths of air that are quickly captured by the radiating sun that shines on the birds chirping high above the trees. A black bear eating my neighbor's suet feeder and trying to pole vault with the feeder's stand. Sand castles arrayed upon the soft ground as two children cackle and throw a squishy blue ball across the beach, creating a game they don't even know the rules for. Splashing into a lake that is full of freshwater and free of oil and harmful chemicals. Health. Diving, spinning, sinking, stroking, breathing. Swimming is my safe haven. The one activity where I glide effortlessly across an open body of water without feeling any pain in my body other than my lungs gasping for air momentarily. My life has felt like a poem lately, so I want to reciprocate that to you. To let you know that there is more than any struggle you are facing. Stop what your doing, take a moment, look around you, and see the endless beauty in this world that was created in six days. These things we take for granted have been spoken into utter existence in a sentence. Appreciate these moments. There will never be a moment like it again. No matter what the scenery is- city lights, country fields, raging storms- there is always a beautiful sky that you can get lost in, letting it engulf you and remind you of the endless beauty there is in the stillness.
Dream.
Delight.
Rest.
Hope.
Enjoy.
Breathe.
Laugh.
Pray.
Be.
My hope for you is that you can take the time to notice the little things that make up this great big world and create an even bigger and brighter difference than if you hadn't noticed them at all. That there is life, and beyond your greatest moment, there is an even greater life.
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