Life is too short to view the world through half drawn curtains. If we fail to draw our curtains fully back, we will only have a small, narrow view on the world around us. Alice likes to open her curtains fully.

Alice is five years old and exploring the world anew. Everyday is an adventure, a time to see and learn new things. When the weather is too unsavory for someone so young to explore outdoors, Alice draws back the curtains to her windows so the world outside can come shining in. She draws them fully back so she can get a wide-angle view of the outside world. She doesn’t like to miss out on anything.

Alice loves the excitement of everything around her. Playing quietly in her room is not an option. She needs to go out, or at least see out into the world around her.

Her busy little fingers have to be placed in every mud hole. Frogs, butterflies, and fireflies must be captured, inspected, and returned safely to the world.

Her eyes never stop scanning the people around her. She looks for interesting faces, delightful smiles, and funny grimaces.

She has a bunch of cute little dance costumes with all the accessories. These are kept in her room, and only used when her mother allows her to wear them. Outside her bedroom, not too far from the back yard gate is an old family-style cemetery. No one has been buried there in quite some time. Very late one night Alice woke up to see the ghosts of two little ghost children playing with her dance costumes. Being afraid, she slid down under the covers and eventually went back to sleep.

The next morning, her Mother came in to wake her up and demanded to know why she had been playing with her dance costumes in the night. The costumes were spread all over her room. Rather than explain her experience, Alice just took the blame for it.

Secretly she confided this experience to me. I asked her if she thought it might be two children from the cemetery, but she didn’t know. The children were having so much fun in those costumes she decided to let them have their fun. Was it a dream or was it real? One thing I know, Alice recognizes the joy in life whenever she sees it.

I’ve seen what happens when people fail to open their curtains, or only open them half-heartedly. These individuals shut themselves away from the world. They fail to notice the wondrous changes, colors, and sounds around them. They only notice the dangers, dirt, and loud noises that come with letting the outside world in.

Not so with Alice. She demands to know, see, hear, play with, listen to, talk to, and be a part of everything and everybody. It’s all new to her. It’s all wondrous, colorful, and delightful.

Life is too short to view the world through half drawn curtains. Just ask Alice.

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