Sunshine Day

I took a million pictures of the sun on my walk with Lucy after work today.

I'm a true Seattlite.  I worship the sun when it chooses to deign me with it's
presence.

I tried to get Lucy to pose for a picture in the sun, but she was nonplussed.

She wanted to get back to her sniffing.

And now she is perched on the couch, staring out into the sunshine, sniffing all the fresh air smells wafting in through the window I just opened for the first time since last fall.  She seems just as enthused as me to finally be able to air out this stuffy apartment a bit.

Prettily posed.

Her mood seems perfectly matched to mine right now.  Contemplative, thoughtful, curious and subdued.  We've both got things on our minds.  While her thoughts are most likely much less involved than mine, they seem to consume her just as equally.

The past few weeks have flown by so busily that I haven't had a whole lot of time to just think.  So on this beautiful Friday evening, I'm making the choice to just think.  During stolen moments in the in-betweens of my busy times lately, I've been thinking a lot about "life," and the way it fluidly changes over time, sometimes abruptly and sometimes so slowly that you don't even notice if you aren't paying close attention.  Sometimes change is by choice and sometimes not.  Sometimes I feel like the only constant in my life is change (in fact, I believe I wrote a post about just that topic back in the beginning days of this blogging experiment).  So I'm going to expound upon life and change here for a bit.  I apologize in advance if I wax too philosophical for you, but I'm feeling a bit nostalgic today.  Beautiful days do that to me sometimes.

All these thoughts were sparked recently by a post I saw on Facebook.  I know that sounds lame, but let me explain.  I follow a photography blogger on Facebook who goes by the name of HONY (Humans of New York).  HONY takes pictures of people of all shapes and sizes in NYC and accompanying the picture posts will often include a few quotes from the person in the picture as they describe their lives in whatever manner they deem appropriate.  While I am not shy in expressing my disdain for living in NYC, there are things that I  truly miss about it.  NYC is a city like no other, filled with people like no other.  And by following this blogger, I get to have a small taste now and then of all the things that I did (and still do) adore about NYC.  His pictures are beautiful, funny, witty, sad, charming, bittersweet, and intriguing.  So when one pops up on my news feed, I can't help but click and take a look.

This one, along with the quote below it, appeared a couple days ago:

"I did a little bit of everything. Was never great at anything... but I survived."

I hope I'm not breaking any copyright laws by reposting it here, but I've given full credit (here's HONY's non-Facebook website too).

Everything about this image and those words tore at my heartstrings.  It was like something clenched inside my heart and made me want to cry for this man.  This surprised me, because I am not typically someone who grows overcome with emotion at pictures of random strangers.  I'm not emotional or dramatic by nature.  But I felt incredibly sad for this man.  I hoped beyond hope that there were many wonderful times left out of this little summary of his life.

What was it that struck me so deeply?  I'm not really sure, but I think it's a combination of things.  The beautifully composed picture.  The far-off contemplative stare.  The cane hooked and waiting on the railing.  And the words.  The simple summation of life that he was never great at anything, but "I survived."  Is surviving really enough?

But most of all what struck me deepest was the fact that this fully alive man was sitting here on this stoop talking about his life in the past tense.  As if it was already done.  As if it was over and he is simply waiting it out until the end now.

I exist on a very different side of life than this man.  I look at where I am and think that life has barely started for me.  I'm not ready to think that one day I may talk in the past tense about my own life.  Doesn't he still have hope?  Can't he still find that one great thing?  What made him give up?  I want to know his story.

Maybe I am being too judgmental and inferring too much from a simple picture and simple words, but one can't help but think.  It's the simplest things that make you think the most sometimes.

In reality though, this image creates a desire to know what my own story will be.  I want to know how I'm going to write my story.  I wonder, if I am lucky enough to grow to be an old woman one day, how will I talk about my life?  How will I feel about the choices I made?  Will I be proud?  Will I be sad?  Will I smile or frown as I reflect back?  Will I talk in the past tense or will I continue living all the way up to the end?

I can't know the answers to these questions.  No one can.  But there is something I can do.  I can choose to make life great.  I can choose to live each day as if someone will be talking about me in the past tense tomorrow.

And not to brag or anything, but I think I'm doing a pretty good job of that.  I know what I love.  I love teaching and running and Lucy and friends and family and Seattle.  I love being active and I love being lazy. I love sunshine and I love the rain.  I love being around people and I love being by myself.  I love being busy and I love doing nothing.

Each day, I try to surround myself by the things I love as much as possible.  And I think that is all any of us can really do.  All we can do is simply try to be the happiest we know how to be.

So I'm going to keep doing that.  It's the best plan I've got, so I'm sticking to it.  Until things change.

Happy Sunshine Day.