Pick one moment during which you felt most alive this year. Describe it in vivid detail (texture, smells, voices, noises, colors).
I don’t usually go for extremes. Favorite song? Favorite book? Favorite food? I waffle on the answers to these questions, because I don’t like having to pick one thing. Top five I can do, maybe even top three, but one? Single? Only? I’m too indecisive for that. So while I get where this question is going, I have a hard time answering it. Feeling alive to me means feeling happy, calm, content, relaxed, productive, excited…and somehow, maybe even feeling all of those things at once. I feel most alive in the moments where things seem so good that I have to stop, look around, and take a deep, deep breath. Instead of one thing, many moments pop into my head. Here are three of them:
Jose and I went to Italy last May to celebrate our first anniversary. On our last day in Venice, we took the water bus from the stop near our guesthouse to the train station. The ride took about 20 minutes. After having through the rain the day before, this day was absolutely gorgeous — sunny, clear, probably about 75-80 degrees. The water, which is often described as dirty and gray, actually looked blue. Through puffy clouds, we could see airplanes taking off from the Venice airport back on the Italian mainland and behind that, far in the distance, we could see some mountain peaks. (The foothills of the Alps, I assume?) We watched gondolas, water taxis, and all kinds of small boats navigate the canals and admired the cool architecture of the buildings we passed. We felt the breeze on our faces and smiled a lot. It was pretty perfect.
A couple weeks ago, I went for an evening run while Jose was in class. The sun was setting as I started out, and it was completely dark by the time I got to the second half of my run. I was on the “trails” in my neighborhood (which are really just wide sidewalks set back a bit off the road) but the ambient light was still enough that I could run without worrying about tripping over anything. I turned off my iPod, partly for safety since I wouldn’t be right next to the road, but partly just to enjoy the peace and quiet. It was about 50 degrees out that evening which is pretty much ideal running temperature in my book and a breeze was blowing the branches of all the trees around me. Somewhere along the way I’ve heard or read that being in darkness heightens all of your other senses, and that’s what happened for the mile I was on the trail. Everything was tingling. It was crisp and clear and quiet, and I enjoyed just listening to the sound of my breathing and running through the darkness. Life was good.
The night before my birthday, I was slaving away in the study working on the pageant program that I’ve done as a freelance project for a few years now. It was crunch time and I still had a lot of work to do to get it finished and off to the print shop. At 11:00 p.m. exactly, I heard quick footsteps and looked up to see Jose jump through the doorway looking VERY excited. “It’s your birthday,” he said. “Because it’s midnight on the east coast where you were born, and I don’t want to wait any more!” He dragged me out into the family room and said “look!” By this point I was smiling and laughing — but I didn’t know what I was supposed to be looking at! He pointed at the island in the kitchen and I finally noticed the Wii box that was sitting there. I was so excited that I jumped up and down. It wasn’t just the present. It was how excited he was to make me happy. It is good to feel loved.
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This month, I’m participating in Reverb10, which charges you to “reflect on your year and manifest what’s next.” There’s a different prompt every day.
