If

It is often when I move from one home to another that I uncover treasures that I forgot were there. Sometimes it's something hurredly written on a scrap of paper, sometimes a sketch or a photograph, or the old embroidered tablecloth that my grandmother gave me years before she passed on.

When I find this little epihphany in a moving box my response to it is usually visceral. My gut flutters and grips, my heart beat speeds up. Memories and emotions flash through my mind and body transporting me to another time and place. It never ceases to amaze me how a latent emotion held in the body for years, stuffed and ignored, is always felt in the now. It comes up fresh and raw and present.

Today while unpacking a five year old storage box I came across a poem torn from a book. I remember this poem bringing me much comfort and support and relief years ago. And today, it was a blessing to find! This poem reminds me that I'm not alone in this human condition and that, while others don't always behave well, I can still keep my center and choose a different path - balance and detatchment and determination...

I hope you enjoy it too...

If -

If you can keep your head when all about you

Are losing theirs and blaming on you,

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,

But make allowance for their doubting too;

If you can wait and not be tired of waiting,

Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,

Or being hated, don't give way to hating,

And yet don't look to good or talk too wise:

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;

If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster

And treat those two imposters just the same;

If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken

Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools'

Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,

And stoop and build 'em up with worn out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings

And risk it on one turn of pitch - and - toss,

And lose, and start again at your beginnings

And never breathe a word about your loss;

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew

To serve your turn long after they are gone,

And so hold on when there is nothing in you

Except the Will which says to them 'Hold on!'

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,

Or walk with Kings - nor loose the common touch,

If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,

If all men count with you, but none too much;

If you can fill the unforgiving minute

With sixty seconds worth of distance run,

Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,

And - which is more - you'll be [my daughter and son!]

- Rudyard Kipling

*** I edited the last line to make it more acessible to both sexes.