The Weight of a Whisper

I found a marble in the pocket of my coat this morning. It was dusty and chipped, a small, cold sphere that immediately pulled me back to a summer when the days felt like they would never end. Back then, we didn’t need reasons to be anywhere. We just existed in the dirt and the grass, our knees permanently stained, our voices hoarse from shouting at nothing in particular. It is strange how we grow up and start measuring our lives by what we accomplish, as if the value of a day is tied to a list of finished tasks. We forget the importance of simply being present in the mess of a backyard, where the only goal is to see how high you can jump or how fast you can run before the sun dips below the fence. When did we decide that play was something we outgrow? I wonder if we lose a part of ourselves the moment we stop finding wonder in the small, unscripted moments of a Tuesday afternoon.

Jose Juniel Rivera-Negron has captured this beautiful, timeless feeling in his image titled Ordinary Children. It reminds me that the most profound connections are often the ones we don’t plan for at all. What is the last thing you did just for the joy of it?