is that all there is?
Sitting outside with Jul at Cusina downtown a couple of weeks ago, I had, well, a moment.
The starlight parade was starting in a couple of hours and already, families lined the sidewalks, in anticipation of the nighttime celebration. Mothers cuddled small children and fathers hoisted sons to their shoulders. And meanwhile, the usual suspects wandered the city streets, providing plenty of fodder for people-watching. The sun was still coasting overhead and the white tablecloths gleamed as I raised my microbeer to toast Jul’s water. And suddenly I realized:
It’s perfect.
I’m exactly where I want to be. Doing exactly what I want to do.
I tried to explain it all to Jul and I think she got it, we hadn’t seen each other for a while but she knows how I am, recognizing moments, feeling fanciful and just generally being a died in the wool romantic. She smiled at me in indulgence but I caught an eye gleam that told me she understood something of what I was feeling. It was just perfect, I explained. Sitting at an outdoor restaurant in Portland toasting my dear old friend and just, you know, being.
And it’s taken a long time to get me to this place.
So many people search for that moment, that feeling of pure happiness and when-will-it-start that I think they miss out on what’s happening all around them. I’ve been called a risk taker by some, who know my history of quitting my really good job to freelance, and, I suppose, of upping and shifting my gear cross-country.
But I don’t think you have to wait for momentous things to happen to have a momentous life.
Those people on the sidewalk. Those families. They were all having their own moments, and making their own memories.
I wonder if they knew.
At what point in your life do you say, this is my life. This is what I’m going to be doing from now on. And, I’m happy. Recently I was having a conversation with a friend and he told me that when he woke up that day he had the feeling that he liked his life. That’s a good place to be, I told him.
And sometimes I think, what if I would have gotten married, the times that presented itself? Sometimes I think, then I would live in a big house on a golf course and not “have to do” anything at all. But then I think. What do you do in a big empty house? Stare out the windows. Think about how once, a long time ago, people said my writing showed promise.
Then I feel fine again.
It’s perfect.
I’m exactly where I want to be. Doing exactly what I want to do.
I tried to explain it all to Jul and I think she got it, we hadn’t seen each other for a while but she knows how I am, recognizing moments, feeling fanciful and just generally being a died in the wool romantic. She smiled at me in indulgence but I caught an eye gleam that told me she understood something of what I was feeling. It was just perfect, I explained. Sitting at an outdoor restaurant in Portland toasting my dear old friend and just, you know, being.
And it’s taken a long time to get me to this place.
So many people search for that moment, that feeling of pure happiness and when-will-it-start that I think they miss out on what’s happening all around them. I’ve been called a risk taker by some, who know my history of quitting my really good job to freelance, and, I suppose, of upping and shifting my gear cross-country.
But I don’t think you have to wait for momentous things to happen to have a momentous life.
Those people on the sidewalk. Those families. They were all having their own moments, and making their own memories.
I wonder if they knew.
At what point in your life do you say, this is my life. This is what I’m going to be doing from now on. And, I’m happy. Recently I was having a conversation with a friend and he told me that when he woke up that day he had the feeling that he liked his life. That’s a good place to be, I told him.
And sometimes I think, what if I would have gotten married, the times that presented itself? Sometimes I think, then I would live in a big house on a golf course and not “have to do” anything at all. But then I think. What do you do in a big empty house? Stare out the windows. Think about how once, a long time ago, people said my writing showed promise.
Then I feel fine again.
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