Beautiful Days, Lessons to Learn

Sometimes, on beautiful days like this one where the sun shines high and the sky burns the bluest blue, it is hard for me not to hearken back to another sunny and perfect day: September 11, 2001. It is not the actual details of that day that haunt me, though of course it is in my mind. It is more the feelings and thoughts in my own life, before those planes hit the buildings, before we all changed forever.

On the way to law school that morning, while I admired the breathtaking brightness of the day, I rounded a turn in my Grand Am and was met with a semi-truck barreling toward me, across the center line, in my lane. At just that minute my breath caught in my chest for that milli-second I wondered if we would collide - and then, the truck righted itself and continued safely past me.

There never appeared a serious threat, only that glitch in time when I didn't know if the truck would veer left or right, to safety or catastrophe. I inhaled in relief and thought, "That's how fast it happens. People die in those seconds. I wouldn't die like that, right? Because I live a charmed life. But, still, I bet the people who die in those seconds believe they live a charmed life, too, right up to the moment of death. Wow. You just never know."

I got to school safe and sound. During that first class, our professor said the following in regards to why late court filings would be excused: "For example, when the World Trade Center was bombed some years ago, those days would not count." Strangely, a few minutes later I would emerge from that class to a different world, to a new kind of example of tragic circumstances.

All the death on that day reminded me repeatedly of my earlier experience: Right before something really bad happens, in a moment that separates life from the beyond, does everyone hold out hope it won't happen to them? Because they live a charmed life? When do you realize that, charmed life or not, things are not going to veer back to safety at the last second?
Before I laid down to sleep that night, I reached for a "dream journal" so that I might recount my thoughts on the day, detail what I learned about the relishment of life. But I could not get beyond my own slight scare that morning, eons from where I was that night. I could not rectify what had happened a few hours after that, could not wrap my brain around the things I had seen on television, the stories I had heard, and how it all seemed eerily cooincidental.

I still can't, except to say this: How mundane go the days when our reality shifts beneath us forever. Beautiful afternoons like this one are meant to be breathed in deeply and used as reminders to be grateful for the charmed lives we do indeed live.

And to never lose sight that, yes, sometimes things do change in a second.

Summer Reflections

Remember in elementary school, on the first day of that new grade, when the teacher would request a recantation of your summer vacation? Well, in honor of those childhood days gone by, I hereby post my summer highlights up to this point and extend an invite to everyone to do the same - it could be kind of fun to share our experiences via the world wide web! (It might be even better to continue the updates through the end of summer, into fall and winter and spring, and back again!)

Summer, 2008:

I spent three glorious days with my bestest friend in the universe (excluding those who share a bloodline or to whom I am legally betrothed) and relished every second together. At one point, we looked to each other and realized we had transcended friendship and were now family. It is nice to know I have that kind of connection in this uncertain world, and it made me appreciate my entire circle of friends, which would be incomplete without each individual link. All hail fine friends!

Dave Matthews and his band did not disappoint yet again - it is not summer in my heart unless I see a DMB concert at least once. Such perfect music swelling in the heat of dusk can't be beat, and I was fortunate to hear two magnificent shows. Each held special moments, but the best culminated in sharing one of my new favorite songs, "Sister" with my little sister in the encore of the Pittsburgh show. The clincher? Two major fans in front of us, high on life and music and other natural aids, declairing honestly, "And they really are sisters, too!" as we all shared the specialness. Blissful, really.

Tucker County, West Virginia, is likely not high on many vacation wish-lists, but for my husband and me, visits to our cabin on the Cheat River are truly "almost heaven." To bathe in the river surrounded by nature is another indication of summer and it hardly gets better than a float down the water on a hot summer day. So many memories that have now morphed into traditions to be savored into the future. Wild and Wonderful, indeed!

Summer isn't over yet, so neither is my list. How to identify each savory memory? The list would simply be endless. I won't subject anyone to that, but do please add your own summer touches! Stay cool!

Heal Yourselves!

Sometimes, in my over-contemplative nature, I wonder how it is exactly that we change - become one kind of person from another. These changes can be teeny-tiny or massive, but they are present everyday. It is hardly true that we put our minds to transformation into a new type of person - though, that can be true at times, like when I moved to college my freshman year and put my mind to turning into the type of person I always knew I was deep down inside.

More typically, the change sneaks up on you and whacks you on the head one day when you suddenly realize it's happened. I might be at "an age" where this is common (or it could just be me) but it seems to happen near-daily to me.

Over the past two years, things in my life changed quite a bit - the sorts of changes that are impossible to miss, no matter how many days you spend with your head under a pillow. The pace was furious for a while, and not in the good way people speak about in reference to new love or babies.

But lately, the changes are totally internal - my soul has shifted. I didn't know it happened, didn't feel any different at the time, but now, afterward, it feels I am a brand new individual. A metamorphasis occurred without my knowledge and here I am, the same but not.

And the strangest change of all? I like it. I am healthier. I'm not completely alien - I have the same interests and passions and loves as ever before. But my perspective is clearer. And I'll embrace it, for now.

Because I am sure the changes will continue. And when that happens, I'll be ready to be surprised all over again.