12/7
December in cocoa beach is absolutely flying by. How can we make time slow down? Boy, I wish I knew. Life here is so simple, yet so perfect in its simplicity.
I keep meaning to update my blog but it gets forgotten in the motion of daily life. I've been writing in my journal a lot, on long van rides or during my breaks in homeowners' lawns. Mostly, I've been documenting all the little beautiful moments that bring a smile to my face. I'm in constant awe at how many of these moments I find throughout my day.
We've been spending our time in full-body Tyvex suits and respirators, sledge-hammering mold out of people's homes. Each day, I excrete my entire body weight in sweat and must attempt to convince my brain not to go into panic mode. It's tough. It's a mental and physical challenge for all of us. But I am reminded not to wish it away. I sometimes get caught up in the monotony of daily life and I forget that I am alive. It's really, really easy to forget you are alive, but it's an absolute wonder when you remember.
If I'm worried or anxious or uncertain, or unsure whether I'm on the right path, I think about that monologue from Our Town that has somehow always stuck with me and seems to follow me anywhere I go. It's cheesy but it always brings me back to the present moment in a heart-breaking, euphoric way. It's weird how recalling the nature of our fleeting mortality brings us closest to life. I repeat the words in my head, and imagine myself as Emily, coming back from the dead and realizing all the things she didn't pay attention to while she was living. She takes one last look at her life before returning to her grave. She has run out of time.
"I can't go on. It goes by so fast, we barely have time to look at one another... I didn't realize. So all that was going on in life, and we never noticed. Take me back, up the hill, to my grave. But first.... wait. One last look. Goodbye, world. Goodbye grover's corners. Mama and papa. Goodbye to clock's ticking. And mama's sunflowers. And food, and coffee. And sleeping, and waking up. Oh earth, you are far too wonderful for anyone to realize you. Do any human beings realize life while they live it? Every, every minute?"
One day, I will run out of time and I will have to let go of everything I was fooled into thinking I could keep. There is nothing I, or anyone else on this planet, can keep. I will miss the rain and saying "good morning" and listening to Landslide and cold beer and the ocean's waves. I will miss bug bites and frozen winters and the rash I get when I sit in the grass too long. I will miss Christmas tree lights, my family's love and the laughter of my best friends. I'll miss crying of happiness and crying of sadness and the warm blanket of forgiveness I've been learning to surround myself with. These seem to be the smallest things, yet they are the biggest.
It pains me deeply at the thought of losing any of these things. But the beauty of loss is that it only hurts when you had something worth loving in the first place. I am at utter disbelief every day that I am lucky enough to have things worth loving. I'm in the active process of trying to realize life while I live it-every minute.
Somehow we only have four more days here, before we head back to Sacramento. Tonight, I think we're going to the beach to enjoy the sea in the dark. We'll probably get Sonic, which has pretty much been the centerpiece of our Florida experience. Tomorrow, we're going to the Kennedy Space Center.
What I want to remember about this place is the old schoolhouse with the red doors. The decorative tropical animals in the courtyard, and the mouse poop in the foyer of our "bedroom", or "cotroom" if you will. The guinea pig named Gale that we hid in the closet for a few days before Mike gave it to a Humane Society. The night the Red Cross had a Christmas party in the conference room and we had to pretend we didn't live there. I want to remember lunch with Rohan's grandparents and the warm salty air. Karaoke with the UCC, performing Bohemian rhapsody and having the whole bar sing along to "Home." Chris and his voluminous dreadlocks and chatty disposition. Basketball in the Florida sun, and singing Lips of an Angel through our respirators in old man Schmidt's house. Our movie parties, all cuddled up on that tiny stage in the conference room. When Mike told us the government might shut our budget down, and Roy chugged an entire bottle of iced tea on the spot to "drink away the pain." Orange sunsets against palm tree silhouettes. The creak of the fan in the middle of the night.
I keep meaning to update my blog but it gets forgotten in the motion of daily life. I've been writing in my journal a lot, on long van rides or during my breaks in homeowners' lawns. Mostly, I've been documenting all the little beautiful moments that bring a smile to my face. I'm in constant awe at how many of these moments I find throughout my day.
We've been spending our time in full-body Tyvex suits and respirators, sledge-hammering mold out of people's homes. Each day, I excrete my entire body weight in sweat and must attempt to convince my brain not to go into panic mode. It's tough. It's a mental and physical challenge for all of us. But I am reminded not to wish it away. I sometimes get caught up in the monotony of daily life and I forget that I am alive. It's really, really easy to forget you are alive, but it's an absolute wonder when you remember.
If I'm worried or anxious or uncertain, or unsure whether I'm on the right path, I think about that monologue from Our Town that has somehow always stuck with me and seems to follow me anywhere I go. It's cheesy but it always brings me back to the present moment in a heart-breaking, euphoric way. It's weird how recalling the nature of our fleeting mortality brings us closest to life. I repeat the words in my head, and imagine myself as Emily, coming back from the dead and realizing all the things she didn't pay attention to while she was living. She takes one last look at her life before returning to her grave. She has run out of time.
"I can't go on. It goes by so fast, we barely have time to look at one another... I didn't realize. So all that was going on in life, and we never noticed. Take me back, up the hill, to my grave. But first.... wait. One last look. Goodbye, world. Goodbye grover's corners. Mama and papa. Goodbye to clock's ticking. And mama's sunflowers. And food, and coffee. And sleeping, and waking up. Oh earth, you are far too wonderful for anyone to realize you. Do any human beings realize life while they live it? Every, every minute?"
One day, I will run out of time and I will have to let go of everything I was fooled into thinking I could keep. There is nothing I, or anyone else on this planet, can keep. I will miss the rain and saying "good morning" and listening to Landslide and cold beer and the ocean's waves. I will miss bug bites and frozen winters and the rash I get when I sit in the grass too long. I will miss Christmas tree lights, my family's love and the laughter of my best friends. I'll miss crying of happiness and crying of sadness and the warm blanket of forgiveness I've been learning to surround myself with. These seem to be the smallest things, yet they are the biggest.
It pains me deeply at the thought of losing any of these things. But the beauty of loss is that it only hurts when you had something worth loving in the first place. I am at utter disbelief every day that I am lucky enough to have things worth loving. I'm in the active process of trying to realize life while I live it-every minute.
Somehow we only have four more days here, before we head back to Sacramento. Tonight, I think we're going to the beach to enjoy the sea in the dark. We'll probably get Sonic, which has pretty much been the centerpiece of our Florida experience. Tomorrow, we're going to the Kennedy Space Center.
What I want to remember about this place is the old schoolhouse with the red doors. The decorative tropical animals in the courtyard, and the mouse poop in the foyer of our "bedroom", or "cotroom" if you will. The guinea pig named Gale that we hid in the closet for a few days before Mike gave it to a Humane Society. The night the Red Cross had a Christmas party in the conference room and we had to pretend we didn't live there. I want to remember lunch with Rohan's grandparents and the warm salty air. Karaoke with the UCC, performing Bohemian rhapsody and having the whole bar sing along to "Home." Chris and his voluminous dreadlocks and chatty disposition. Basketball in the Florida sun, and singing Lips of an Angel through our respirators in old man Schmidt's house. Our movie parties, all cuddled up on that tiny stage in the conference room. When Mike told us the government might shut our budget down, and Roy chugged an entire bottle of iced tea on the spot to "drink away the pain." Orange sunsets against palm tree silhouettes. The creak of the fan in the middle of the night.
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