Bittersweet and Lovely

Ya know, I could spend my life sitting in coffeehouses, eating their cookies, drinking their dark, bitter magic in a cup, listening to their trendy art nouveau music and eavesdropping on other people’s conversations. Provided that the conversations aren’t about breast feeding that is. It’s a good thing this whole writing thing is catching on with me, as I can make any of these places my office for the day. I usually commandeer a spot by the window and sit right smack in the middle of a splash of sunshine, a dose of which can usually chase away whatever depressive thoughts I’m entertaining, thoughts I entertain far too often. I think they’re the curse of creative minds. It’s like we think too much, in too much depth, and on too many planes about everything that’s happening around us and to us. Yet I feel this is a blessing as well as a curse. I wonder if it’s because life overwhelms us, the reality of time passing and realizing how transient things are, how brief, and yet also how achingly beautiful.

My favorite quote from Thornton Wilder’s Our Town is at the end when Emily has died and is standing with the stage manager. She asks him “Does anyone ever realize life while they live it... every, every minute?” He responds,  “No. Saints and poets maybe... they do some.” That scares me sometimes, not realizing life while I live it. Often I get busy and too social, and I’m doing so much and filling my time with so many things that before I know it, weeks have passed, months, years, and I find myself not having much with which to mark the passing of time. I don’t take in the moments for what they are; I don’t appreciate that the minutes spent with other people are small, but incredible doses of eternity, for the soul is an eternal thing. I panic sometimes just before sleep. I’ll feel this uncontrollable slide into the future, ache for times past that are now just memories, want to re-live them, widen my eyes, engage my senses and absorb more. It’s what makes life so bittersweet and lovely, I suppose, for the future always holds those moments too. It's the uncertainty that I often find unbearable.