My Big Yellow Sun

When I was a kid, and living in the spectacular state of Maine, I was too young to know it was the freezing cold backwoods of hell for some - my mother for one. It was home to me and I loved it. Sucking on icicles and building snow forts in winter...catching polliwogs and climbing on rocks in the summer...it was pure heaven for a kid like me. I have always loved the outdoors - I would live there if I could and society hadn't taught me otherwise.

Things were quite rocky from time to time - health issues, the drudgery of school, being painfully shy, and the youngest of five and ignored most of the time - I didn't feel sorry for myself even in my sadness -- like most children I didn't really know life could be any different. As kids will do, I developed my own ways of coping. In addition to writing poetry, one of my favorite things to do to cheer myself up was to draw a big yellow sun. I'd scrounge around for the biggest piece of the whitest paper and the best yellow crayon I could find and fill that piece of paper full of sun...radiant, glorious yellow sun! I always felt better after! Then I'd hang it on my wall and feel it's warmth shine down on me the rest of the day.

Kids are amazingly resilient creatures. We would all benefit from taking a moment to look back into our childhoods and find that creative, resilient being who still lives buried within us. That is where we will find the remnants of our authentic selves and the strength and wisdom to face life's difficulties and challenges.

I knew the face of God then. I felt His presence in my day to day life; during those moments when I sat in the hollow of an enormous tree, soaking up the smells and sounds of its humming life force; or when I was mesmerized by the enormous icicle that grew larger every day on the corner of our little house reaching for the ground; or tantalized by the ragged flow of maple syrup from the tree in our back yard as we tapped it and gathered its gifts; or when I was safely ensconced in the warm, safe pew of our church on Sunday morning, where the echo and aroma of reverence seeped into my soul; I knew God was there...with me..then.