Val BuschI recently picked up my son’s 2007 Worland High School annual from the school office. There they were, the graduating class, in full color, with a cute little baby picture insert and along each picture was printed a favorite quote or a personal life credo. As I perused through them, I had to smile, so many of the quotes reminded me of my class motto (Green River High School Class of 1970), “Live today…for tomorrow may never come.”
I can still remember, vividly, the rolling eyes, sighs, and half-hearted attempts of the long-suffering high school staff to override, in their opinion, our melodramatic, fatalistic choice (we were one of those classes).
To tell you the truth, if memory serves, it wasn’t that well thought out. More the dredges of a too long meeting in which too much had to be decided by too many, and the will of a few long-haired, mini-skirted (dare I say “flower children”), who forced on to the apathetic majority. “Live for today for tomorrow may never come” somewhat cynical…and yet perhaps an understandable, lament from the generation of draftable kids at the end of the Vietnam era.
Flash forward to 2007, all these years later, echoes the same sentiment in all it’s many guises. Less cynical, “Life is short, time is short, roses fade and shadows shift,” more eloquently stated in John Lennon’s plaintive voice, “Life is what happens when your making other plans.” More poetic, “Cherish yesterday, dream tomorrow, live today.” More to the point, “live one day at a time.” Different and yet…the same.
I find it reassuring and inspiring, that as fledgling as the attempts to voice a life credo at the tender age of 18, out of the mouths of babes, both then and now, rings a truth that after all these years of living, learning, and experiencing life, I believe, stand by and live by today (so there, GHS teachers circa 1966-1970).
No matter how you dress it up, pretty it up, reword it to make it seem more contemporary, the sentiment is the same. Live today, love today…experience today. And as a prime time lady (never old!) I think one of life’s greatest compensations for the passing of time is, in addition to living in the moment, I have been given the lovely gift of appreciation. In recent days I have been truly appreciative of a good friend who listened with love in her heart, a truly amazing rose, a vote of confidence from colleagues, committed, tireless veterinarians who made Sunny dog feel better, a silly phone cal from my son from college in the middle of a really trying day, and a gorgeous autumn walk on our farm. The small gifts of an ordinary day, a life lived one day at a time, is what I believe what makes life wonderful.
Val Busch is still a 'flower child' as the owner of The Flower Exchange in Worland. She is also the President of the Worland/Ten Sleep Chamber of Commerce and a very proud mother to boot.