5.13.24

Waiting for an answer from you, I told J about my race. "I never hit that runner's high," I said. "I was just pounding gravel the whole time." J told me how to get through this week: "It's just a race," she said. "You'll just get through it." It's true I can see the finish line. I'm not sure how long it'll take me to get there, but what matters is that I don't stop. 

I remembered G's face when he was dying. It was the last time I'd see him. There were hundreds of other people who had come to see him; one last celebration of life. We all talked about what G had meant to us, where in our lives he had touched us. He'd just had his second baby and his wife was next to him, holding their children. How many heartbreaks had brought them together? And now this? But he had more peace on his face than anyone that I'd seen who still had life to live. I'll never forget that face. I wrote him a poem, about surfing, which I always wished we had done together. The ocean has its own sense of distance, you see. Far and near are not the same as they are on the shore. Underwater, time moves at its own pace. So I wrote to G, as he was dying: 

"It's strange. What once seemed so far is suddenly so near. When the wave comes crashing down on you it's always a surprise even when you know the ocean is made of waves..."

How silly of me that I live everyday like I'm sure I'll have another. I know whatever answer I get from you will be an invitation to live. Finally, I'm awake.