I've had such wonderful, fabulous and torturous beauty in my life. It all comes in varying degrees with such random backdrops.
Last night I went outside here at the heliport. Not sure why as I should've been asleep and it was after midnight. But I did and found a scene that moved me deeply. The almost full moon and the clouds that whipped by in the wind left me awestruck and melancholy but smiling. I thought of folk cozied up in warm winter beds and of other adventurers holed up on precipices that alternated between shadow and bright moonrays.
Tonight I went outside again and - of course - could not capture the same exquisite feeling as yesterday but I got thinking about love and beauty. About the glorious moments in my life that I never want to forget. There are, and I hope will be, many more than I'll type up tonight but I ought to do what I can to maintain the amazing memories. In no particular order.
Ras al Hadd - I think - the Omani coast anyway, on the beach of turtles. Late in the afternoon, it felt like, and I was in the rustic changeroom / bathroom. I remember so clearly fabulous Anne. She must've been lathering me up with sunblock - so perhaps it was early in the morning - and she made some comment about my youthful skin. I felt years of memories and such poignant yearning in her voice as she touched my shoulder. I could not have understood what she felt, and likely still cannot but I knew enough to know that I would one day. I never felt more beautiful than she made me feel right then, though I knew it was mostly because I was young. I learned then what I must appreciate - even though I was about 15 and like every other 15 year old so terribly critical of my self. As Jack Nicholson may say: THIS is as good as it gets.
Riding a bike - tipsy and giddy - down London streets in the middle of the night. Laughing with a fellow heart.
Seeing the whole sky of stars reflected in the surface of Lake Okanagan. Finding my constellation and making a wish for both images.
Dodging wisps of clouds on a crisp and dreamlike morning flight.
Watching the sun go down and the stars begin to twinkle with my dad on a boat in Indonesia.
Listening to 2 boys slyly rock out in my last class of ground school - made me laugh and laugh and still laugh now when I think about it.
Playing musical 'stones' in Oruchinga and tickling a small boy child nestled on my lap, watched him howl and howl with glee, with no effort made to escape my torturing fingertips.
Playing hide and seek in too tall grass on a too wonderfully warm fall afternoon.
A blood red sun setting in the background as I gazed at beauty in a friend's face after my first day down the Nile.
Being carried to bed by both of my giggling brothers after falling asleep watching a movie - when I was far too old and big to warrant being carried to bed anymore.
Wearing baby cake's old blue running shirt and wandering outside on the wet grass in the pouring New Jersey rain - all alone.
Swimming. Almost anywhere. I always end up happier when I'm swimming. Far out - so far out I'm almost scared - at Mystery Island, I startle big old sea turtles off the sandy bottom. Late at night in the Zambezi. The Nile. The Arabian Gulf. The Okanagan (brrr!). Diving down on a lazy afternoon or a fresh morning and looking up at the surface and the sun through the gold-lit strands of my hair. Jaws theme thrumming in my head as I stalk and attack my oblivious mother - year after year after year.
Listening to Jack and Diane for the very first time wearing just jeans and lit by a lava lamp. Have loved lava lamps ever since.
Head on Slug's shoulder and hers on mine bawling and bawling outside the Dubai movie theatre - for William Wallace.
Wandering around the jasmine night garden in RAK, resting my cheek against my own flame tree and wondering when I'd ever figure out my applied math homework. I did - eventually - but isn't it funny that the nights spent wandering when so frustrated are now far more important than the vectors that were frustrating me.
Dark nights in Kenya, in summer camp, in Zion where I preferred to walk without switching on my flashlight.
Curled up in the bat cave with sweet talk after an uneventful foray onto the bungee tower. Words that I thought I'd never forget that are now nothing but sugar in my memory.
So so so many more I could keep remembering and writing but my eye lids are heavy and my pillow is calling.
