I met a woman with orange lipstick slightly smeared onto her top teeth, walking along Onetangi beach.
"Do you know anyone who lives around here?" she askes me.
"No, sorry."
"Neither do I. It's all changed now, and I'm too afraid to ask these people." She gestures to a group of people assembled over a backyard meal.
Turns out she is looking for some friends of her late husband ("He died two years ago, my darling"). She wants to finally meet them. I can sense some profound loneliness radiating from her. I want to give her a hug.
"It's all changed, my darling," she keeps repeating, as if the words were a bridge to accepting whatever tragedy she can't yet conquer. She is so sad and so strong and so sweet. I hope she finds what she is looking for.
"Do you know anyone who lives around here?" she askes me.
"No, sorry."
"Neither do I. It's all changed now, and I'm too afraid to ask these people." She gestures to a group of people assembled over a backyard meal.
Turns out she is looking for some friends of her late husband ("He died two years ago, my darling"). She wants to finally meet them. I can sense some profound loneliness radiating from her. I want to give her a hug.
"It's all changed, my darling," she keeps repeating, as if the words were a bridge to accepting whatever tragedy she can't yet conquer. She is so sad and so strong and so sweet. I hope she finds what she is looking for.
It's exhilarating and a bit tragic how many people you meet once in your life, knowing you'll never see them again. You spend three hours on an amazing adventure with someone only to go your separate ways at the end of the day to completely different, full lives. I've met and said goodbye to so many fascinating people in the past few weeks, probably more than I've ever met at one time in my life (except perhaps for college, although I was much more reticent to talk to strangers then).
One thing I've learned on this journey is to appreciate the ephemeral. Like monks making intricate mandalas in the sand only to have the waves wash them away, sometimes things are made more beautiful in their transience.
One thing I've learned on this journey is to appreciate the ephemeral. Like monks making intricate mandalas in the sand only to have the waves wash them away, sometimes things are made more beautiful in their transience.
A little girl gave me flowers the other day.
At first I thought I was scaring her, hurrying along beside her on the sidewalk. We stopped at the crossing, her grandfather trailing pleasantly behind.
"Hello," she said matter-of-factly, her tone perfectly matching her cropped hair and sensible glasses.
"Hi there," I said, disentangling myself from the unimportant anxieties pushing my feet ever forward on the pavement.
She held up three yellow daisies, vivid against her too-big powder pink sweater. "I like your flowers," I offered up.
"They're for you," she said, as if she'd plucked them with me specifically in mind. I took them and thanked her; she smiled, said "Bye!" as her grandfather caught up to us, and just like that she was off, skipping along in the frenzied, unencumbered stride of childhood.
I held the daisies in my hand the rest of my commute, equal parts joyous and melancholy: for childhood is precious, so precious and so temporary.
At first I thought I was scaring her, hurrying along beside her on the sidewalk. We stopped at the crossing, her grandfather trailing pleasantly behind.
"Hello," she said matter-of-factly, her tone perfectly matching her cropped hair and sensible glasses.
"Hi there," I said, disentangling myself from the unimportant anxieties pushing my feet ever forward on the pavement.
She held up three yellow daisies, vivid against her too-big powder pink sweater. "I like your flowers," I offered up.
"They're for you," she said, as if she'd plucked them with me specifically in mind. I took them and thanked her; she smiled, said "Bye!" as her grandfather caught up to us, and just like that she was off, skipping along in the frenzied, unencumbered stride of childhood.
I held the daisies in my hand the rest of my commute, equal parts joyous and melancholy: for childhood is precious, so precious and so temporary.
The harbor is always choppy: forever restless from the ferries and sailboats, kayaks and canoes. At first it reminds me of television static...but what an absurd term for the kinetic energy of incessant ripples, waves washing tirelessly against stone steps to nowhere. It's anything but static: vibrations of the city a geiger counter measuring life itself.
(And anyway, no one knows about TV static anymore. We are immune to suffering the screech of "technical difficulties", always ready with a channel change, or more likely the comfort of the mobile screen, ready to Google our way to unlimited entertainment.)
I try again. This time the sea seems akin to the dimpled skin of a woman's thighs: tiny indentations tutted over in the mirror, slathered in cocoa butter, shamefully cloaked in Spanx.
But why should we be ashamed? Our bodies are roaring oceans, shivering with vitality. We bear tremors of humanity on our skin, a tactile topographic map of individual journeys.
Our scars and bruises and bulges and angles - they are evidence of activity. Of wild, complex lives led and thoughts had breaths taken. They are ripples in the harbor proving ourselves to ourselves:
We were here.
And that is enough.
(And anyway, no one knows about TV static anymore. We are immune to suffering the screech of "technical difficulties", always ready with a channel change, or more likely the comfort of the mobile screen, ready to Google our way to unlimited entertainment.)
I try again. This time the sea seems akin to the dimpled skin of a woman's thighs: tiny indentations tutted over in the mirror, slathered in cocoa butter, shamefully cloaked in Spanx.
But why should we be ashamed? Our bodies are roaring oceans, shivering with vitality. We bear tremors of humanity on our skin, a tactile topographic map of individual journeys.
Our scars and bruises and bulges and angles - they are evidence of activity. Of wild, complex lives led and thoughts had breaths taken. They are ripples in the harbor proving ourselves to ourselves:
We were here.
And that is enough.