I used to carry time like stones—
the what-ifs, the should-haves,
old lovers’ letters tucked in mind-folds
like moth-eaten robes I couldn’t shed.
I thought healing lived in the distance—
a someday when all would finally settle.
But then I met the day.
Not a day—this day.
Bare feet in dewy grass,
my daughter’s laughter
rising like incense from the porch,
my wife brushing coffee grounds from her palm
like it was nothing—
and yet, it was everything.
The Master told Tenzin:
“You are not late. You are not early.
You are only ever now.”
And gods, I heard that.
So I began to put things down—
the ache of not being accepted by her family,
the echo of slurs from my schoolyard years,
the gnawing guilt that I once wished to be someone else.
I laid them softly
like river stones along a path.
Not forgotten—just no longer clung to.
Today I walk light.
Not perfect. Not above sorrow.
But grounded. Whole.
Aware.
The sky doesn’t ask if it was beautiful yesterday.
It just opens.
©Susie Stiles-Wolf