I wrote what follows on June 4, 2020. A time that shaped so much of where I am today. A time when I trusted that everything I was going through, and the world was going through, was preparing me for what was to come. When hope and unwavering belief were two deadly components that I poured my entire trust into. What follows still rings true today.
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Thursday morning I woke before my alarm at 5:15 am. I jumped to my knees in bed and looked out my window to see what kind of day it was going to be. When I saw the soft yellows and oranges of the sunrise, I immediately wanted to walk around Castle Island to watch the sun fully wake the Earth.
As I started walking down the sidewalk, past the apartments that caught fire early last Saturday morning, I noticed a penny on one of the apartment’s front steps. I wasn’t able to see if it were heads-side up or tails-side up, so I decided I would check on my way back. Secretly, or maybe presumably, I wished for it to be heads.
There was hardly anyone else out with me that early, so I had the luxury of relishing in the quietness of that hour. I started listening to a new book, The Things You Can See Only When You Slow Down, and I tried being as present as possible to really digest what the narrator was saying.
I watched the calmness of the ocean, the starkness of the buildings standing in the background, and the birds flying to and from wherever their day was taking them. In that moment, it felt like I was living in a completely different world… or maybe I was just looking at it differently.
I continued breathing, listening to the wisdom the narrator was spewing, and feeling thankful that I had the morning air to refresh me.
I made it a point to take mental pictures along my walk. Sometimes I want to take pictures with my phone and store away the beauty of the boats against the beach, so I can look back on my not-so-good days and relive these precious moments. Other times, I resist the urge to want to capture everything knowing that taking a picture to look at in the future is the opposite of trying to cultivate presence.
I was crossing the bridge of Castle Island where fishermen typically set up shop. On one side of the bridge, the water was still with not one ripple flowing through it. On the other side, the water was turbulent and rough. As I was walking past, I thought about how symbolic it all was. The world is what it is. Everything that is, simply is. It doesn’t ask to be mulled over or judged. Nothing asks to be dissected or scrutinized to oblivion. Our minds do that. Once the world enters our minds, we spit it out and create a wave that disrupts all that is around us. We take a situation, interpret it in our minds, and put a twist on reality with a flavor from our own palates.
In that moment, when I had a whole analogy playing out in my mind, a bug landed on the top of my head and got caught in my hair. I was slightly startled as I was in the midst of a “profound” thought, so I quickly ran my fingers through my hair to get it out. I looked down at my shirt where the bug landed and noticed it was a lady bug. I looked at it for a few seconds and thought, “This is also symbolic.” I decided that moment was photo-worthy, so I turned to grab my phone from my pant pocket. When I turned my head back to the lady bug, it was gone.
It felt like the book I was listening to, The Things You Can See Only When You Slow Down, was sinking into my cells and shaking me awake. The present is truly precious. Sometimes we need to be reminded that no picture can capture it quite like you can in the moment.
On my walk back to my apartment, right before entering my building, I stopped at the burned apartment’s staircase to inspect the penny I had left waiting. I had to look closely as it was dirty (or rather ashy from the 7 alarm fire), and that’s when I saw it… sitting there staring back at me was Abraham Lincoln— heads-side up.
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