Chris

Sometimes — during a Florida summer, a lot of times
— it starts to rain at an inconvenient moment.

Yesterday while I biked my errands, it began to pour.

My extensive to-do list? Interrupted.

So I pulled over and took shelter under the awning of an office building on east University.

I leaned my bike against the wall and sat on the concrete, earbuds in, and watched the rain come down, the steam rise from the road, and the cars swoosh by.

Fifteen minutes later, it continued.

“Fuck it.”

I got back on and biked on
in the downpour toward my next destination.

It’s these moments when shit sucks
that are sometimes the sweetest.

I am alive.

I don’t know why but it is a sweet reminder that arises at the least convenient moments: Praise the skies, I am alive.

Among the worst of troubles is, “Maybe I should have…”
But there will come a point when the worry of “what if?”

will be dwarfed by the wonder of what could have been
and you will learn to act.

Courage is not always so noble.
Sometimes it is only fear of regret.

Burn from the agony of “if only I’d”
and you learn to leap to flee from that fire.

Life slips away
and chances rarely re-emerge.

Risk rejection
if only because you fear regret.

If Gainesville were a pastry, it’d be a turnover.

People are in and out in cycles from season to season ceaselessly.

Every now and then I reminisce: “What was my life like a year ago?”

A distant image.

Every year a new experience.

Every year a new set of friends and acquaintances.

(And yet another notch on the belt of faraway friends.)

I’ve lived here almost 7 years.

I remember the first few the nerve-racking feeling when graduation approached and friends would plan to move.

From the trials of transience comes a strength of spirit.

Every year an opportunity for renewal and proof of your resilience.

Every year everything is different and yet, somehow, you are the same.

Somehow, still, you’re okay.

Within you there is a constant, a stability somewhere that is undeterred by a changing world.

Find it and find your freedom.

We met only that once.
We shared a laugh and a short chat.
But something clicked, and we both knew,
“Wow. You are human, too.”

It’s a small place, thus inevitable, it could be.
But of 7.1 billion on this planet currently;
of 14 billion years since the cosmos came to be,
what chanced this encounter between you and me?

Most of us go preoccupied
between stresses, grievances, and concerns.
But then we meet again… out of the blue…
and I can’t help but feel so happy to see you.

is to go.

Everything else can wait.

Every dismissal is permissible.

The papers on your desk: don’t organize them. Shove them aside. Urgently.

The call you just received: don’t answer it. Turn off the phone. Unapologetically.

This moment is critical.

You’ve received a message from the skies.

It is rare. It is fleeting. It is important.

You must write it, paint it, code it. Whatever.

Whatever you do, get it out from that flawed and fickle head
before it flutters away.

When inspiration strikes, the geyser begins to rupture, and the current will soon gush out, forcefully.

Go. NOW. Run.

Grab the fucking buckets! Screw in the hose! Do whatever it takes to capture it.

You need that water.

Who knew that when you go out for a run at 5:30 in the Miami morning, you can see bats? I didn’t think there were bats in Miami, but the truth is I just never came out to meet them.

Sometimes you wake up with a smog in your head. It can keep you in darkness all day. Today I told it, “No. You’ve got to go.”

You run, you heat up, and that pollution evaporates.

I run adjacent to morning traffic and my temptation is to think, “fuck these cars,” as I breathe in their fumes, but that’s not fair cause this morning I’m letting out emissions, too.

The music shuffles.

“I’ve been tryin’ to do it right/I’ve been livin’ a lonely life…”

I run harder.

I run til I’m not lonely. I remind myself that every day, I have the power to choose myself. I choose myself, and I am grateful to be chosen.

I turn the corner and I almost run into these kids walking to their school bus.

I think about last night, seeing my old high school friend, and how he now has a six-year-old, and how fucking proud I feel to hear him say, “No, you can’t watch that show, it’s bad for your brain.”

And earlier, to me: “Sorry man, I can’t have another, I’ve got to get back to the house.”

We can all right ourselves.

I see a mango ahead, fallen on the sidewalk, and I pick it up. It’s cracked open, but what a sweet smell.

Then the jasmine bushes. Breeeathe.

I’m almost back home.

There are no bats anymore, but there is an airplane flying low, ahead of me.

“Where are you going? Take me.”

I can’t keep up.

“I’ll meet you there.”

This morning I’m on my way.

Back to Gainesville and forward
to other proverbial places.