This week the Vineyard had the funeral service for a mother and her two children who were stabbed to death by her ex boyfriend.
As I ran around the playground inside listening to the room filled with laughter and life my eyes kept traveling out the windows to the parking lot. I watched rows and rows of cars fill the lot people shuffling out slowly with their heads down.
Both ends of life in the same building.
A funeral
A preschool
I've been thinking about that a lot today. The start and the end of life.
Life and death happening at the same time all over the world.
Today was someone's worst day of their life
Today was someone's happiest day.
That's strange and yet it makes perfect sense. It has to. In order for the world to exist the way it does it has to make sense.
My breath steaming from below my eyes. The loud pant of my lungs as they suck air and spew it back out taking from it what they need to survive and sucking in a fresh batch.
My feet rhythmically crunching on the snow beneath me leaving a mark proving not only where I have been but also that I exist. Now.
My heart pounding faster and faster and I push aside my brain's advice to walk. I can feel this never resting muscle pushing blood to every corner of my body and back. I can feel the heat of that blood in my finger tips.
My eyes scanning up and down the dark silent winter night consuming the beauty.
But unlike the rest of my body when my eyes consume there is no evidence no trace left behind. My eyes don't exhale a vapor. They don't leave a foot print. They simply take in. But just as my eyes leave no evidence they also take none. Only the faint memory my brain can attempt to store of the very temporary moment.
My muscles tightening around my bones and I push them harder.
My skin pulled over my muscles as they flex
My pores releasing sweat to cool my already cold body
Each step being pulled back to Earth by gravity. The Earth flying around the sun 1,080 miles a minute synced to my 126 heart beats at the same time.
Walhalla runs in the winter.
The dark,
the silence
the solitude
I'm the only person dumb enough to be out in this weather.
And I like that.
My tiny moment in time.
I am alive.
I can feel my body living.
I can feel my heart
my lungs
my muscles
The cold serves as a reminder that I am still alive. I most certainly will not always be but tonight in this cold, this night, I am alive. I do exist.
I don't wear a hat and I don't wear gloves.
I want to feel the Earth's wind on my face.
I want to feel the cold against my knuckles as I begin to lose sensation in them.
I am alive.
As I run I pass a fox on it's evening hunt. We both stop for a moment and turn around. Our eyes meet, and I wave... then I turn to keep running.
I run past a family of deer they look up for a moment to acknowledge my existence on this earth. I wave to them.
I want them to know that I see that they exist. I want them to know that there is more to life than fight or flight. There can be a kind greeting. I continue my existence and they theirs.
mewithoutYou lyrics in my ears
twenty one Pilots working my frontal lobe
phenylethylamine released in my brain.
my body. I won't always have it and it most certainly won't always be in this great of a condition. But for now.
Now.
Today.
Tonight, I have my body and it works perfectly.
I celebrate this by running. I will run no matter the weather.
Rain, Snow, below zero, I will run with my body while I have it and it's all working.
The worse the weather the more I know for certain that I exist.
I know I am alive.
At the end of each day as I lay my head on my pillow isn't that all that I have anyway?
To know that today I existed.
And memory’s got my guts
And I like that
Evening Hymns - You and Jake
As I ran around the playground inside listening to the room filled with laughter and life my eyes kept traveling out the windows to the parking lot. I watched rows and rows of cars fill the lot people shuffling out slowly with their heads down.
Both ends of life in the same building.
A funeral
A preschool
I've been thinking about that a lot today. The start and the end of life.
Life and death happening at the same time all over the world.
Today was someone's worst day of their life
Today was someone's happiest day.
That's strange and yet it makes perfect sense. It has to. In order for the world to exist the way it does it has to make sense.
My breath steaming from below my eyes. The loud pant of my lungs as they suck air and spew it back out taking from it what they need to survive and sucking in a fresh batch.
My feet rhythmically crunching on the snow beneath me leaving a mark proving not only where I have been but also that I exist. Now.
My heart pounding faster and faster and I push aside my brain's advice to walk. I can feel this never resting muscle pushing blood to every corner of my body and back. I can feel the heat of that blood in my finger tips.
My eyes scanning up and down the dark silent winter night consuming the beauty.
But unlike the rest of my body when my eyes consume there is no evidence no trace left behind. My eyes don't exhale a vapor. They don't leave a foot print. They simply take in. But just as my eyes leave no evidence they also take none. Only the faint memory my brain can attempt to store of the very temporary moment.
My muscles tightening around my bones and I push them harder.
My skin pulled over my muscles as they flex
My pores releasing sweat to cool my already cold body
Each step being pulled back to Earth by gravity. The Earth flying around the sun 1,080 miles a minute synced to my 126 heart beats at the same time.
Walhalla runs in the winter.
The dark,
the silence
the solitude
I'm the only person dumb enough to be out in this weather.
And I like that.
My tiny moment in time.
I am alive.
I can feel my body living.
I can feel my heart
my lungs
my muscles
The cold serves as a reminder that I am still alive. I most certainly will not always be but tonight in this cold, this night, I am alive. I do exist.
I don't wear a hat and I don't wear gloves.
I want to feel the Earth's wind on my face.
I want to feel the cold against my knuckles as I begin to lose sensation in them.
I am alive.
As I run I pass a fox on it's evening hunt. We both stop for a moment and turn around. Our eyes meet, and I wave... then I turn to keep running.
I run past a family of deer they look up for a moment to acknowledge my existence on this earth. I wave to them.
I want them to know that I see that they exist. I want them to know that there is more to life than fight or flight. There can be a kind greeting. I continue my existence and they theirs.
mewithoutYou lyrics in my ears
twenty one Pilots working my frontal lobe
phenylethylamine released in my brain.
my body. I won't always have it and it most certainly won't always be in this great of a condition. But for now.
Now.
Today.
Tonight, I have my body and it works perfectly.
I celebrate this by running. I will run no matter the weather.
Rain, Snow, below zero, I will run with my body while I have it and it's all working.
The worse the weather the more I know for certain that I exist.
I know I am alive.
At the end of each day as I lay my head on my pillow isn't that all that I have anyway?
To know that today I existed.
And memory’s got my guts
And I like that
Evening Hymns - You and Jake