I'm thinking of a particular tree, in a particular yard, in a particular town. I haven't seen this tree in years. Maybe a decade. But i think it's probably still there. This time of year, it's likely bearing bright yellow fruit, and it's leaning toward the house and away from the house as a breeze that smells of flowers sways its branches. I've seen this tree a hundred times, but not in years. Something about knowing this tree, and thinking of it, and knowing that it's probably right where I left it those many years ago (not knowing then how long it would be that I would go without seeing it), makes me glad.
I'm thinking, too, of my Mom's old drafting table, and where it used to be in the house that I grew up in. I'm thinking of the spinning office chair that stood in front of it, that I used to sit on. I remember the exact feel of the metal circular bar at the base of it that I used to put my bare feet on - feet that grew in size as I did so. My feet, in all their different stages of growth, rested bare on that cool metal bar at the base of it, and many afternoons I spun around in the chair again and again, sometimes going so fast that I was sure I would fly off. Maybe I did. I don't remember. But I remember that feeling of just sitting in the chair and spinning, and again I feel glad.
I've written many-an-ode to solitude, and time spent alone. I've written many things about the reasons for letting people go, and letting people leave my life, and letting people know only a piece of me, but what I've come to realize is that there's something really incredible about truly getting to know people. There's something about things happening slowly, like the growth of those feet or the fruiting of that tree, that is really indescribable. It's been, lately, the people in my life who have made me realize how amazing it can be just to, well, be. It's not that my life is enjoyable only because these people are in it. It's sort of the other way around. I love these people because they are able to see and understand and appreciate all of those things that have always made life so rich - rich in ways I've often wondered if I could share with people, and rich in ways I've always hoped I wasn't the only person to understand. I love the people that I love not because they make life worth living, but because they understand why life is worth living, and they choose to live it, because they know how worth it it can be to do so. This makes me love many-a-small-thing about life, and it's manifested in my mind an ever-growing list of things that I would like to do, and places that I would like to see, and things that I would like to cook, and songs that I would like to find (if they exist) or write (if they don't). This ever-growing list of things that I would like to do, and experience, and see, and revisit, is something I'd like to share with other people. Maybe I'll do some of these things with people that I love, or maybe I'll do some of them alone. Maybe I won't do them, but I'll always know that I can. Maybe I'll meet people with similar ever-growing lists and we'll swap list-items, and we'll spend our lives doing things, and just being. And some of these things can be done again and again and somehow never be the same, because that's the nature of the mind, and one's thoughts and ideas, and the heart: It's constantly growing, and it relishes being somewhere beautiful or doing something fun or being with good people every time it happens, and always in a new way.
Sometimes those fleeting moments of happiness and awe and inspiration that I've talked about so much, usually couched as such (as being fleeting and ephemeral) are not so fleeting. Sometimes they come again and again. Sometimes they don't, but the memories remain. Sometimes new moments appear in their wake. Sometimes they're just dreams. But the beautiful thing is that so much can happen that cannot be anticipated, and there's a beauty to be experienced that even the most intricate and fruitful imagination can't, in its deepest state or REM or its most inspired years, ever guess would or could occur. There's a shaking of hands between will and volition and passion and determination and the unknown and that which is not apprehended and that which one never even dreamed existed. I'm ready for all of it.
Sometimes life can be so damn beautiful.
I'm thinking of impulsive decisions to jump on a bus with a dear friend in the middle of the night without checking to see where the bus is going, and I'm thinking of just letting the bus take me somewhere far away, where maybe I'll sit on a rocky beach, or drink a bottle of wine next to a redwood, or find some strange relic of yore in a little store in a box that hasn't been opened in years. I'm thinking of trains, and cars, and deserts, and night skies, and planes, and vehicles that take the individual away from one thing and toward another. And I'm also thinking of these trains and buses and planes as vehicles that move in two directions, and vehicles that will bring me home when I am ready to come home. I'm thinking of home, and somehow I can't help but think of it as a large and ever-growing entity that spreads out over my present and my past and the people I have known and know and will know, lost and kept and may lose and may not, and I am glad that all of these moments and all of these people comprise this feeling of comfort, and inspiration, and warmth, and nostalgia, and excitement, and anticipation, and home.
I just feel lucky. Lucky to be. And lucky to be in whatever way I choose to be. Lucky that the nature of this being can be whatever it should ultimately be. Lucky not to know yet what that may be, and lucky to get to find out.
Right now, I'm glad that when I think of why I am lucky to be here, I think of a lemon tree in a backyard on Thousand Oaks Blvd. in Berkeley, California; and I think of a drafting chair from long ago; and I think of the people in my life. I like, too, the fact that the changing of the seasons and the coming about of new smells in the air brings to mind new memories that cycle through me although I had for a long while forgotten them. There are things that I probably do not remember now that someday, maybe on some porch in front of some house I've never seen, next to who-knows-who or nobody or a cat, next to a tree bearing blossoms or fruit of a kind I can't predict, with a cup of tea that maybe I've had a hundred times before or maybe I've never had, I'll remember. And I look forward to remembering as much as I look forward to experiencing something new.
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