June 2023

Dropping a few musings into the universe with no idea if anyone reads this without a link. If something resonates, I'd love to know. 

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Some memories I love to go back and trace my eyes over the words like I would my fingers on carved rock. Strangely enough, I like the painful ones just as much as the joyous ones. Something about coming out of darkness makes me believe I can do it again. And it’s when I get really deep that I think about how insignificant my little blip of a moment is in this vast world, across vast amounts of time, in this vast universe doesn’t actually matter. My brain will never understand that in the moment. It will fight me to believe it is so important. But only to me and me alone. And I don’t mean this in a sad way, but ourselves are all we truly ever have.

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A different day all together. Brisk and sunny. Grateful to wake up and feel the biting cold as I chew up the road, heading east.

Out on the dirt road, I let the silence and cold swallow me up. I want to run forever into the low winter sun. My legs feel tired, but my heart is warm. This heart of cards will tumble though. Just as it always does. I'll find new depths to linger in and if I'm lucky, I'll climb out to find joy.

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I had this hope that I would one day find myself sipping an Aperol spritz somewhere in Europe one summer, feeling careless, free, happy. And over the summer of my 40th year, I did indeed find myself exactly in this spot. It was shared with a friend, not a lover and perhaps that helped me feel at ease. Of course, we want our friends to be happy, but there is an entirely different feeling of relaxing when it’s just to enjoy each other’s company. Friendship requires work in the same way a romantic relationship does, but they are inherently different.

I digress. The drink itself was good, but the experience was what I will remember. It was a warm afternoon, the skies sunny after a morning of dense fog. People spilled into the cobblestone streets, soaking up the sunshine and human interaction after a long few years of isolation and darkness. Dogs were tied to bistro chairs, children shrieked with laughter, and friends conversed over frothy beers.

I think fondly back on the cappuccinos we drank quickly while sitting next to Grimselsee. It was idyllic. My heart was still racing from the switchbacks of the road, but slowed as I relished in the moment. We were next, next, next in our country hopping, but I never felt rushed. Perhaps because we never HAD to be anywhere. We had an agenda, but if we took extra time anywhere, it didn’t really matter. My head swam nightly from too many espressos and too much alcohol, but part of being in the moment is ignoring future consequences.

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The tears dripped off my sunglasses and onto the gravel. It was sunny and chilly, my favorite running weather. My legs were tired from the trail run the day before. I wanted to feel all the happiness I could feel. To soak in the sun on my face while the cold wind nipped my cheeks. To lose myself in the steady movement of looping over and over on a familiar trail.

When I stopped, I broke. It came rushing out in the middle of the parking lot. I sat on the running board and sobbed. I sobbed for you, I sobbed for him, I sobbed for her, I sobbed for myself. I let myself feel sad.

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The stillness of the morning before the rest of the world wakes. Stirring coffee in the press, the aroma wafting through the air. A winter sunset, crisp, quick, and colorful. Sitting at a trailhead, legs caked in dirt, equal parts exhaustion and satisfaction. An unmessy buzz and loud music. A messy buzz and louder music. Where the water meets the sand. Wandering cities alone, but never alone. Laughing. Laughing until there are tears. The tickle of anticipation. A first. A last. The taste of ripe summer fruit. Observing the scene from afar.
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This life is so long and so short. The monotonous days are aplenty. All chores and emails and television series that blend mindlessly into the next. The days that we hold dear are so few and far between. The ones that bring a smile to our face or make our hearts flutter. New memories replace the old ones over time, burying our former selves into the ground a bit further each year.
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I loved feeling the cold against my face, the pain a reminder that I was indeed alive. Summer warmth feels like a haze of existence. The sharp edges of winter are what I prefer.

I chattered away, forcing my mind escape the constant whir of worry. Out in nature, I am free to think only of me. Of how I will carry my body through the forest. Of how I will move my feet over rocks. Of how I will conserve enough energy to make it back to my car.
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I look to the things that make the glass half full. To the absolutes. I can find the black and white amongst all of grey.

It's nearly impossible to steer my mind these days so I just let it float. It rides the current, soaking up the sunshine and banging into shorelines all in the same day.
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I walked alone at the beach, letting the cold bite at my cheeks. Families and couples climbed over the huge trees and made paired footsteps in the sand. I was happy to be by myself though. I wanted to stop and stand and let the wind rip through my hair. I wanted to stick my fingers in the salty sea. I wanted to watch the sun dip lower between the trees and waited for the darkness to arrive.
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You are white marble and I am fiery magma.

You are smooth and chiseled and I am curvy and soft.

You are tidy and thoughtful and I am messy with one foot in my mouth.

You have a routine and I have a new way to wake up each day.

You stew quietly and I overreact.

You are the lifeboat and I am the sea.

You put a wall up, but I am yelling over it.

You skate around your own heart and I unfurl mine in your lap.

You have checkboxes and I lost the piece of paper.

You folded everything up nicely and I am combing through piles on the floor.

You use a knife and plate, I am letting the juice run down my arm in the grass.
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I had grown accustomed to living in the desert. I stopped missing the rain and the green and the flowers because I had forgotten. Their memories faded with time and I settled into a landscape of dust and brown. Every once in a while, I would remember how the effervescent forests of ferns would look on a June evening, lush and verdant amongst the trees. I should have known how toxic the tunnels of mountain laurels were, but I couldn’t escape their sweet scent and beautiful flowers. The thicket of blackberries bursting with ripened fruit were buried beneath painful thorns.

You were my oasis. But I couldn’t stay. Because I belonged in the desert.
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