Fifty Two
There is a reflexive tendency that rises to the surface once a year begins to close. I begin to catalog all the things that did and did not happen, surprises, expectations and how they were actually met, shakes of hands hello, and kisses goodbye. On Christmas Eve my Father talked about how the rotation of the Earth is more of a wobble than a clean revolution. So in the wobbly spirit of harboring nostalgia for the days that were yesterday, or months ago, or remain categorically determined by a season, one thing seemed to float to the top of my mind. People are really important and any kind of relationship with someone you have matters a lot.
I have been thinking of the word ephemeral lately and I suppose there is a good reason for that because my favorite parts of this past year were the ones that were never built to last. I think if a life is the sum of its parts, the years and blurrily defined days, then nothing is easily wasted. Life seems to be about going nowhere fast and whims can land you in the front row of a sunset that you did not even mean to catch. Everything is leading to something, thus making life full of the other shoe dropping and dominos falling and pages turning moments.
The knee jerk reaction to another year on the prowl hit a me a few times. Once when I sat at the bar of The Lobster Trap in Catalina Island. Tears were shed for moments spoken about in the past tense. ‘Remember when… Sometimes I think about… I am scared of… Will I regret…’ Yet, what I remember more clearly is how the tears got interrupted by a mistaken identification of a nun, that prompted a belly laugh. ‘I think I just saw a nun’ (It was a girl with long black hair and a thick white headband). A few days prior to this, a similar feeling crept up on me when I was playing cards with some dear friends because in the simple filler moments life is lived as it should be. Presently and unserious and full of genuine love that is about laughing and being kind (even when it is not easy).
This year as much as I thought I did independent things, believing that makes me superior to a version of me that would rather be holding a hand, I find myself relishing in the company of others. I have learned more in conversations than I have from a dictionary because in order to learn I think you have to listen and in order to listen you have to relinquish control. Maybe this is prompted because people who used to be neighbors belong to different zip codes and time zones and weather patterns now, but when there are the reconciliations and you get to be met with grinning teeth that are wearing blueberry skin it is as if time is molasses and your feet are tree trunks and the earth suggests the wobble has met a standstill. Sometimes when you meet people who were on their way out, because time determined the best by dates, making something spoiled before it could even be enjoyed, it is still a lucky thing. Regardless of how much this makes me sound like an incense burning palm reading person, life is full of surprises. There will always be a right place and right time because what would be the point of doing things we never wanted to do in the first place? I know this because too many times in the past I have been lucky. Like getting fired and having my car broken into the next day or waiting to buy a knife set and then getting it for free. It can also be running into an old friend when neither of you were supposed to be where you were in the first place. It can be about doing something alone and figuring out you were never alone to begin with. Conversations can bob and weave, and a good life is not lived linearly.
In the past year I started an exercise of writing something once a week. I still do not imagine people reading what I write because it feels personal and redundant most of the time, but it was a commitment to something I am still trying to figure out. In fifty two weeks life got lived. Mundane moments got interrupted with surprises good and bad. I saw the world and made my own. I could have spent more time writing letters to loved ones, dancing in my living room, but I laughed more than necessary. I cherry picked moments and conversations for meaning, but what I wish I figured out sooner this year is that nothing is guaranteed, you will be uncomfortable, and it is easy to let things pass you by. So look alive and be alive and talk to strangers and stay up late and mispronounce words and spend time with people who make you feel good and nothing is that serious because it will be over once the next phase starts. Life is fragile and life is grand.
