So there I was at Salvation Army today practically standing on my head to read some of their book titles on shelves barely above the floor, when I heard it. 

Fleetwood Mac's song, Dreams. Wow, suddenly I was whooshed back to my senior year of high school in a tiny California mountain town. Funny how songs can do that to you, scents too, of course.

"Thunder only happens when it's rainin'..." 

I loved that song as a young girl of just 18 and I stood before the books, listening, remembering all I felt and thought back in 1977. Well, only parts. Who can remember everything? Old friends, teachers, my walks to the high school just around the corner from my house and longer strolls to the post office nearly everyday, for no one in town had home mail delivery. 

Sights, sounds and smells of pines and smoke from wood stoves (nearly everyone heated their homes solely with wood). And dream-stepping, dancing, through my days in a land only a teenage girl knows her way around.

Ah, memories.

But you know? All these thousands of days and miles later, I'll take my today. 

Some of my friends wish they could return to childhood, for they miss it. But not me! No, even though I have fewer years to live (upon Earth, anyway) than the ones I've lived already, still, I'll keep my today and tomorrows. My todays are better than all my early years of days, combined, and I'll choose young at heart inside an aging body.

And those were my thoughts while the music played there in Salvation Army. For just a moment I traveled backward thirty years, but oh, was I ever grateful to boomerang right back to today. Not because of where I live or dreams I am living-out, though all that is nice, of course. But because of God and the wisdom He gives and--especially-- knowing I am loved with a love which cannot be shaken.

That was the missing piece in 1977. But it is found, missing no more.


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For inquiring minds, I bought two spiffy 1960's kids' novels and a pair of like-new black slacks, no pockets, my favorite kind. A highly successful day at SA. ツ


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