"This life is yours..."

A long, long time ago, I used to love reading and sometimes buying the greeting cards by a company called Blue Mountain because of the beautiful poems therein. There was one name that was particularly notable – Susan Polis Schutz. I used to love her poems so much that I would copy them from the cards that I wasn’t prepared to buy, and I would then go home and type them up. After some time, there was quite a collection. This is one of my favorites:

“This life is yours.

Take the power to choose what you want to do and do it well.

Take the power to love what you want in life and love it honestly.

Take the power to walk in the forest and be a part of nature.

Take the power to control your own life.

No one else can do it for you.

Take the power to make your life happy.”

It was a time when, intoxicated by youth, I had difficulty telling the difference between dreams and reality, and even the air I breathed was filled with romance. Susan Polis Schutz’s poems always touched a soft spot in my heart.

It is amazing how, after so many years, the magic of the poem is still there. Re-reading it revokes a plethora of feelings – feelings that are stirred by all sorts of memories down the years. Just now, I was reading a passage which was about flavours in French - sucrés, salés, acides, amers, piquants, gras. Maybe there’s a bit of each plus a tinge of sadness. I felt sad for the passage of time between now and when I first came across the poem in a greeting card. I felt sad for the fact that it is only now that I have the capacity to appreciate the wisdom.

Not too late, I hope?