The world was a gray, drippy place until two six-year-olds decided to don their girly, pink rubber boots and stomp in puddles. Their laughter echoed through the neighborhood as they took turns running up and down the sidewalk, finding the biggest puddles. Nothing puts a smile on your face like watching 6-year-olds play in the rain. They don't worry about whether their socks get wet. They're not concerned with the state of their hair. They don't think about who might be watching.They just live in the excitement of the moment. That moment when their rubber boots connect with a puddle and they see how high they can make the water go.
I recall a summer when I was about their age. One of my favorite things to do was to walk into the middle of the road and pop tar bubbles with my bare toes. I didn't live on a busy street. In the small town where I grew up the roads were paved with a asphalt concoction that bubbled when it got especially hot, as it did that summer. I still remember how it felt standing in that road, the heat searing through my mosquito bite-covered legs and popping those bubbles. The particular squish as my big toe pressed down and how black the bottoms of my feet were afterwards. It was an addictive activity, like wringing plastic bubble wrap.
It's been a long time since I thought about popping tar bubbles. That lost memory didn't occur to me until Rose and Emma decided to play in the rain. Only six-year-olds would look at a dreary, water-logged landscape and see opportunity. Only a Kindergartner could appreciate the feeling of popping sticky, warm ooze with their bare skin. Adults so often worry about their to-do lists and tomorrows that they don't spend enough time inhaling the opportunities of today.
When I called Rose and Emma inside, they were soaked, mud-covered and breathless. And I was just a little bit envious.
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