April Showers

In the December of 2008, I started a Facebook group dedicated to the pursuit of new goals, cherishing of old interests and the realization of the importance of every moment. Based on a few graveyard-shift conversations I had with a friend, I called the group the November Runners.

The last line of the introduction was: “How are you going to run today?”

~ ~ ~

It snowed briefly today. In April. The insanity of the moment was laughable. I opened my blinds, expecting grey skies, and was met instead with an intense burst of flakes whipping here and there, dancing madly. It inspired, in a rosebud month, a sudden coziness; an unexpected sense of quieted awe and wonder.

How is it that such moments can be so full of life? I am not sure. But they are precious.

I felt the day float by with meaningful and special ease. My chai latte tasted sweeter. As I walked down the street, the wildest of winds pushed against me and then with me, tossing me to and fro. My smile was more real. How could it not be, when one can feel their place in the world whistling through their fingertips. Mother Nature’s own hair.

It was a good day.

In truth, the feeling saps the rational right out of me. Now the evening, the placid calm of the storm’s aftermath transforms my mind into a picturesque mosaic. A beautiful portrait formed of a million pieces of a million emotions and experiences that aren’t quite clear but are certainly perfect. In this moment, the whole world stands still, exquisite in its form, naked and inexplicable.

I take to soft music and an evening of home brewed tea. The evening could have ended any number of ways, but this is enough. As I whittle it away with sweet nothings, I find myself disinterested in real work, and equally disinterested in real distraction. So I put myself to menial and meaningless tasks. I rearrange my desk clutter. Reorganize the fridge. Pick up a bit in the living room. That sort of thing.

I open my Facebook page, chat with a friend or two, and then move on to cleaning up my profile. Leaving groups that haven’t been updated in months, or that I just don’t find myself connected with anymore. Among them is a group I had started in December of ’08, named November Runners. A silly little thing, filled with very important, real dialogue about seizing the day and being true to who we are and want to be. It had a picture that I took myself while in France and had been untouched for well over a year. I take a moment to admire it:

Some say that Plato attempted to count how many meaningful moments we have in our life. He used geometry and math. One time-tested way to measure them is heartbeats. Some venerable clichés use breaths. But no matter how you count, and how eternally the moments last, one thing is certain: there is a number.

How we choose to spend these moments is one of the greatest pleasures of Free Will. Sometimes we choose to waste it; scared or lazy, or a patron of some other deadly sin. Other times we simply don't know how to make these moments, or worse, how to recognize them when they are given to us.

I am flooded with a sensation I do not know how to interpret. As I look down the group list of members – members who, like me, have not bothered to go through their groups and edit them – I grow both sad and happy. There, are names that I have not spoken with in some time. Others who I have had a mysterious falling out with. And others still who I have shared drinks with just the other weekend.

All are splashes of colour that add to my mosaic. My mosaic of today.

I find myself dwelling on the past. There was a lot of beauty there, all people who I felt connected with in some way. Intimately. Now, some of them will not even speak with me. And they are not the only ones. For this, the group is just a symbol. A stand in. I know other people, quite close to me, who have also had similar experiences with once-upon-a-time friends. My mind wanders – how many times have I uttered my favourite line, “nothing gold can stay”?

I am convinced that our lives naturally have ups and downs, and that, over the past months and into the coming months old chapters are closing and new chapters are going to begin. But unlike a world of black and white, there is no starting line. There never will be. In November, I began to recognize this with an illuminated perspective and vowed not to be caught at a standstill on the next Green Light.

And yet while I lament, I also do not sink to Eden’s grief. I may not have exactly ran, but I did go somewhere. Somewhere incredible.

In my limited experience, no matter what your race - landing that perfect career, learning a new trade, finding a bit more self confidence, rediscovering love, playing more music, overcoming little fears, eating more veggies, playing less video games, playing more video games, quitting drinking, being a more moral person, doing something you've always wanted to, or breathing underwater - early morning running is made easier with a healthy dose of teamwork. It's up to us to get out the door, it's true. But everyone uses an alarm clock once in a while.

I wasn’t prepared for the wake-up call I got. But no one ever is. Tragedy is properly that: unnecessary and blindsiding. The latter confuses, but it’s the former than haunts. I can’t begrudge it, the choices that people make, and I have no mind to. None at all, now. I am simply saddened. Saddened for all of the needlessness.

But through this strange sense of recollected sorrow, I cannot help but smile. Because what is out of our hands is out of our hands. And what is in my hands – and what ran through my fingers today – is breathtaking. It is wonderful. And it always will be. That is me, and who I am, and I know it.

Here we are.

This group is dedicated to bringing together people who want to get a running start.

I don’t know how we got here. But it’s going to be alright.

- Z

Made In His Image

Yes, I have a god complex.

Because I know things. Because I’m right.

I know that laughter is not a medicine, it’s a result. I know that the best things in life don’t fit into clichés. I know that the most potent things that make me, me, will never fit into an expression that is less than my entire life. I know that that we are most capable of doing what we believe in, and that there are only two things that we cannot fail at: Living and dying. I know that advice for existence is voluntary, and that all things in life are equal part meaningful and meaningless.

I know that the concept of an illusion is the only real illusion. I know that we can do the fantastic, and the impossible; that the concept of limit is only a safety line we drew in the sand.

I know, fundamentally, that if anyone has even an influence on what you can or cannot do, you should tell them to fuck off. I know that you should not hesitate to be who you want to be, and I know that there will be consequences for doing so. But there are consequences for not doing so too, and I know they are much, much worse. I know it’s the interest payments that hurt you more than the debt.

I know you are an incredible person, beyond measure.

Ask me again, and I will tell you again.

I also know that if you’re not reading this with some inspirational music in the background, you’re not reading it right.

Men may think about sex more than women, but I know that everyone thinks about pleasure. I know that pleasure itself is harmless and holy. Because the best love letter I ever wrote was to a woman that I’d never dated. The best intercourse I’ve ever had was with a woman I’ve never fucked. And the best fuck I’ve ever had was with a woman I haven’t seen yet.

I know that real love can’t hurt me, no matter its form. And I know that the best love doesn’t come with a wedding day.

The wise say you can’t eat love. The wiser know that love doesn’t need to eat. I know I’m not wise, but I do know that.

I know that you can use evil for good, and good for evil. And I know that you never have to. I know, deep within the fibre of my being that being moral doesn’t mean being square, or boring, or staying away from taboo topics. Being honest and being earnest does not qualify one for being condemned, no matter what the subject. It just qualifies them for possibly being wrong. Being moral means being alive while you are living. Any other provisions are merely riding ethical coattails.

I know we’re all wrong at some point. I’m certain when I am most wrong I think I am right. I never let that get in the way.

Sometimes, it just feels good to whoop a guy at their favourite game. I know that there doesn't need to be anything more to it than that.

I know that alcohol and hot-cocoa can serve the same purpose. Whoever first put them both together was the first interdisciplinary student in happiness and understanding. And while we compose our own cocktails, we ought to remember that everything ferments in the same way, even if not in the same place or with the same flavour. I know that every drink can be the best we’ve ever had.

I know that sometimes a pursuit of truth takes us outside of the classroom and the protester’s rally, and into the arms of another under a warm blanket. And I know that won’t happen on its own. We have to will it, as well as wanting it.

I know that somewhere, deep in my heart, I feel the need to be understood. And I know the whole world could.

And when I understand myself, I know that I need to dance. And sing.

And laugh.

Then I know I’m a god.

- Z