Jane is June, June is Jane.

 Having been born and spent my childhood in Greenville, Mississippi, I learned to cherish summers where I lived outdoors like a free little wild creature. I was born on the first day of June and perhaps because of that birthday, June became part of me and I part of it. A month of magic and play. The official kickoff of summer vacation from a long list of family obligations including my own schooling. This morning, I wrote on Twitter (then deleted it for placement here) that I have a lifelong habit of going around barefoot in the house and garden. I've also developed a lifelong habit of sitting on the side of the tub and washing my feet throughout the day. It seems so easy to think about putting on a pair of shoes or even slide-on sandals, but I never take the time. Today, when I was washing my feet for the first time, before noon, I thought about all those who had lived who had sat in houses with dusty floors and washed their feet in a bowl of water which I am sure was a luxury. It gives new meaning to those people in Biblical stories who washed and anointed feet, doesn't it?

I like the feel of floors beneath my bare feet, the blade of green grass, even the stones that I walk across, the paths I have made in the garden over the years. I love summer, I love June. It's easy to see that I love myself and my life, that I work to slow it down, to feel as much as I can, pay attention to as much as I can, be grateful as much as I can. That I relish the senses, even the thorns and small pebbles that occasionally prick and cause pain.

How do we stay enchanted when we see so much horror throughout our lives, when we experience illness and pain, and great losses? I am beginning to believe that this is about personality and that forms in childhood. The toddler here was never free from trauma, a medical issue, and yet, that little girl, with all her pain, saw great beauty everywhere. I am still that girl. I was flexible and teachable. Curious. Grateful.

Walking around with no shoes, perpetually living in a "summerland" even when winters came, enchanted by being alive at all.