As Long as this Exists

Yesterday, after a long weekend on a bus with rowdy boys to Culver, Indiana to play two high school lacrosse games, I needed a little quiet time. (We won a game on Saturday and lost one on Sunday; overall, a positive experience.) With too much on my mind, I headed over to Hudson Springs Park for a run, but ended up walking the loop around the lake. 

 At one point, along a marshy alcove near the woods, I came across a stork-like bird, perhaps, a type of crane with a long yellow beak, creeping with its long legs, looking for fish. (I confess I wish I knew my ornithology better - oh, someday.) 

For a moment, I hesitated, and accepted the bench's invitation, sitting down to watch the bird snap up a small fish and swiftly swallow it. Then, with its expansive wings outstretched, the bird flapped three times and fluttered twenty some yards over to the other side of the alcove's shores, and fished some more. Finally, after another unlucky fish, the great bird took flight and soared towards the center of the lake, banking right, flying North over my head. 

On the far side of the lake, two men sat in a small fishing boat. From a distance, they appeared motionless. The sun, setting, sent long shadows and slivers of reflected skylight. Another day. Another weekend. Another month drawing to a close. I sat in stillness without a word. 

Then, today, I read Writer's Almanac; through this excerpt from Ann Frank, my experience had words for the solace that I could not express the previous evening.



As long as this exists...


by Anne Frank

"As long as this exists," I thought, "and I may live to see it, this sunshine, the cloudless skies, while this lasts, I cannot be unhappy." The best remedy for those who are afraid, lonely or unhappy is to go outside, somewhere where they can be quite alone with the heavens, nature, and God. Because only then does one feel that all is as it should be and that God wishes to see people happy, amidst the simple beauty of nature. As long as this exists, and it certainly always will, I know that then there will always be comfort for every sorrow, whatever the circumstances may be. And I firmly believe that nature brings solace in all troubles.


"As long as this exists..." by Anne Frank, excerpt from The Diary of a Young Girl. © Bantam Books, 1986. Reprinted with permission. (buy now)

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