I grew up in an old farmhouse on 18 acres.  It was a beautiful property with a stream at one end and a cornfield at the other and plenty of fruit trees in between.  I remember the rug in the largest upstairs room; made up of a hundred smaller rugs all patched together in a quilt.  I remember the old kerosine heater and putting my feet up on its front grill in winter when I came in from playing in the snow and my mom would bring me hot chocolate.  I remember dancing in the kitchen with my brother and sister growing up and the old cellar door I was always afraid of when I was young. 

I used to ride my bike over to my grandma's house which was on the same property and watch tv with her and play card games.  One day, I decided to have picnic under one of the mulberry trees and when I took up the blanket, it was covered in berry juice, much to my dismay.  When I was 7 or 8, my dad built me a fort in the little stand of trees near the back of our land.  I still remember climbing up to the top of one of the tallest trees in that little grove and hanging upside down from the branches; staring at the sky.

When I got older, I could play at the stream where I'd catch salamanders and crayfish, and wander through the back field to the woods where a deer stand had been set up on the neighboring property and I'd climb up and watch the sun set.  I still miss that old life sometimes; with the swing hanging from a walnut tree and the clear spring water that poured cold from the spigot.  Life was simpler then and it lightens my heart just to remember it.

One of my friends was having a hard time and I was talking her through it on AIM.  I was telling her that the people that were bothering her were only a small part of a much bigger world.  I said the world was full of beautiful things and great people and all she had to do was reach out and find them.  It didn't matter how bad things got because happiness was a choice you made for yourself and the most important thing was to get all that you can of your own life and love all you can. 

After the conversation finished, I looked back over what I had typed and I suddenly realized that I ought to direct this pep talk to myself as well.  I knew the words to say but I had never sat and really thought about them and how they applied to my life.  I've been dreaming a lot bigger since then.

I bend my knee to broken hearts

wreathed in a vail of frost;

to the bleeding heart's enduring art

though the battle has been lost.

It demands the greatest courage

to stand when others fall

and go one standing til a new age comes

to reconcile us all.

To the broken, bruised, and battered:

I tip my hat to you.

Keep on fighting, though you're tattered.

Faith will build your heart anew.

And each night dream of what could be.

Your dreams will one day set us free.