Angry Little Tree

If there is one thing that I can leave my friends with, decades from now when we’ve inevitably parted ways and gone on to greater or lesser or stranger things, it is the heartfelt belief that life is sweet.

There is pain, and sorrow, and heartbreak, and lonliness. There is blood and there are tears and there are dark days, and weeks, and years when it seems the sun will never come out again – life in Iceland for the soul. But even the darkest moments are singularly, uniquely what they are. Drink it all in and don’t pretend it’s anything else, and when the sun rises and the storm passes you’ll understand it better for having tasted both sides.

Take time to center yourself.

Touch the spines of books you’ll never read.

Stop looking into the sky to find God and look in piles of leaves.

Taste the metal tang of your fork when you eat, not just the food.

Breathe deep in cold weather and stop to feel it chill your bones.

Watch people while they work and laugh and play.

Say hello to someone every morning.

When you see a poet, point and laugh.