{when the sun is too bright}

Do you ever wonder why after going through such a long, cold winter that when people first see the sun they say, "Wow, the sun. I didn't know it was so bright." We up north have come accustomed to no light. It hurts to be in the sun and yes even the other day I said it was "too warm" when I went out for lunch at a nearby bistro. Well it was, that is considering that my very fair skin has grown rather thick to hold all the available warmth it can against the past five months of winter. The sun is my friend and enemy. I burn easily in its rays but then I clamor for every available burst in my direction. Right now, everything is brown and grey and some areas just turning green. I day dream of a daisy meadow where I can lay out in the sun and watch lazy clouds go by like I did when I was a young girl dreaming on the farm. I would go out there on those enchanted days, in a little sun dress. My strawberry blonde hair was usually in a wisp of curls behind me and I would run gaily, searching out the best spot in the tallest grass surrounded by daisies and hide out. Just me and the clouds and the occasional sweet little bird. I would sing out there, songs that were hidden deep in my heart. Songs that if heard by anyone else would only receive a smile and maybe a smirk. I was hopelessly in love with my life and I knew that others felt differently about it. They had experienced war, and heartache, death and destruction. My green eyes and small ears didn't understand the darkness that was there, that could hurt and sometimes ruin a person. Is it to late to understand, I would think to myself that life once lost is lost forever and that mine is beautiful and loved and I want to love other people in it. Those days were filled with prayers to. Prayers that my dreams for loveliness would follow me and that those who came along that had been broken could be calmed by the peace I experienced in knowing that the God I loved would mend their broken heart and carry their burdens for them. Sometimes, people would cry and then they would smile because they knew that life was worth living. I can still hear the soft whistling of the Tamarack tree from the front yard. And right now... if I am very quiet... I am there.... in the field looking up into the bluest and purest sky I have ever seen, holding a daisy in my small hand and dreaming.... sweet dreams of a little girl ...