Proximity
One of the most defining parts of a city is the proximity of shared spaces.
There have been times when I've been so grateful for it, like when I start making a batch of cookies before checking to see if I have any eggs, and I can walk to the corner market and get a dozen and be home in five minutes. There have also been times when I've been less grateful, like when I lived next door to a makeshift mariachi band with regular late night jam sessions. But maybe the most poignant moment I've felt this so far in my life has been tonight.
Last night, I stood on the balcony of my little two bedroom apartment and looked out past Lake Union up into the sky at the first full moon of 2019 and a total lunar eclipse. It was a miraculously crisp and clear night in Seattle, allowing me to carve out time with friends and companions and watch the whole eclipse, lasting a few hours from start to finish. I marveled at the universe and my small and so insignificantly significant place in it. I stopped worrying about the little things that normally take up space in my mind and acknowledged the beauty of the world I live in. We remarked on the energy of the full moon, how we can feel it deep in our souls. We remarked on how, probably, more babies were being born tonight than other nights. How, probably, more people were dying.
Tonight, I stood on the balcony and looked across the street at the apartment complex there, and noticed a few things out of place: a vehicle from the King County health department, a parked police car, and a few minutes later, a gray van with a piece of paper on the dashboard that read: funeral home. The man driving the gray van made a call, and a small, elderly man emerged a few minutes later with a sad smile and wave. My heart sank as I put the pieces together. Just a few hundred yards from where I had cupped a warm mug of hot cocoa and talked with my friends, someone else had slept their last night on this earth. Proximity.
I don't know anyone in that apartment complex, but I felt the threads of humanity connecting me to that small man, and without thinking I did that human thing where I put my palms up to my temples to feel my own face in my own hands and started to cry. I hoped that he didn't have to spend tonight alone. I watched the moon rise again, just as it did last night, still so full and bright.
There have been times when I've been so grateful for it, like when I start making a batch of cookies before checking to see if I have any eggs, and I can walk to the corner market and get a dozen and be home in five minutes. There have also been times when I've been less grateful, like when I lived next door to a makeshift mariachi band with regular late night jam sessions. But maybe the most poignant moment I've felt this so far in my life has been tonight.
Last night, I stood on the balcony of my little two bedroom apartment and looked out past Lake Union up into the sky at the first full moon of 2019 and a total lunar eclipse. It was a miraculously crisp and clear night in Seattle, allowing me to carve out time with friends and companions and watch the whole eclipse, lasting a few hours from start to finish. I marveled at the universe and my small and so insignificantly significant place in it. I stopped worrying about the little things that normally take up space in my mind and acknowledged the beauty of the world I live in. We remarked on the energy of the full moon, how we can feel it deep in our souls. We remarked on how, probably, more babies were being born tonight than other nights. How, probably, more people were dying.
Tonight, I stood on the balcony and looked across the street at the apartment complex there, and noticed a few things out of place: a vehicle from the King County health department, a parked police car, and a few minutes later, a gray van with a piece of paper on the dashboard that read: funeral home. The man driving the gray van made a call, and a small, elderly man emerged a few minutes later with a sad smile and wave. My heart sank as I put the pieces together. Just a few hundred yards from where I had cupped a warm mug of hot cocoa and talked with my friends, someone else had slept their last night on this earth. Proximity.
I don't know anyone in that apartment complex, but I felt the threads of humanity connecting me to that small man, and without thinking I did that human thing where I put my palms up to my temples to feel my own face in my own hands and started to cry. I hoped that he didn't have to spend tonight alone. I watched the moon rise again, just as it did last night, still so full and bright.
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