Time

I am currently curled up in bed in my childhood vacation home located in Door County, Wisconsin. Except this time I’m not just on a week long vacation. I’m here for the entire summer.

I suppose you could say I’m here because I needed a job and to make money and blah blah blah but it has turned out to be so much more than that. I am here because I’m getting to live with Dee, who is as close to family as one can get without sharing the bloodline. I am here because one of my closest friends chose to spend the summer with me, even if it meant leaving a job she had been incredibly dedicated to for six summers. I am here because I, too, left a job I was dedicated to and put my entire heart and mind into ever since I was old enough to leave home. I am here because I longed for adventure and long days at the beach and drinking sweet tea and laughing and sleeping in instead of spending way too many moments crying and under stress that at times seemed unbearable. I am here because I wanted something new.

This morning I woke up around 10:45. Well, that’s not exactly true. I got up around 10:45. When I woke up was probably a while before that. I have an unusual love for doing, quite literally, nothing. Regardless, I got out of bed and put on a sweater and threw my disastrous lion hair on top of my head and stretched a little. I actually worked out the other day and my legs are sore. And then I wandered into the kitchen, because I love breakfast and there were cinnamon roles on the counter. I said good morning to Dee, smiling ear to ear as she thanked me for cleaning the house the other day and said how much she appreciated it and how much she loved me. I was glad she noticed. The reason I cleaned had little to do with the fact there was dust on the bookshelves and food on the floor and much to do with the fact I longed for her to know how grateful I am just to be here.

I threw a cinnamon roll in the microwave and told Dee we needed to cut the cantaloupe as it was probably getting old to which she declared, “It’s all chopped up and in the fridge.” So I ate cantaloupe and a cinnamon role for breakfast, sitting on the chair at the table in the kitchen, happy to be alive, happy to be me.

I realize this kind of sounds like I’m living in some heavenly daze, as if the sun is always shining and the kitchen tile is paved with gold. But the thing is, I’ve recently been reading a book about positive energy and about the remarkably true fact that life is what you make it and my thoughts have changed which has made me change, which, in turn, has quite remarkably changed my life.

This past year at Southern, I spent a lot of time, well, not enjoying time. I’d be in class thinking “Oh my word I can’t wait for this class to end.” And then it would end and I’d go to work and think “Wow I’m so bored I can’t wait for work to be over.” Then work would be over and I’d go to my room and think “I can’t wait for the café to open. I’m so hungry.” And then I’d go to the café and bring supper to my room and think “I’m so tired. I can’t wait to go to bed.” And, looking back, I didn’t find much joy in class or work or supper or sitting in my wonderfully comfortable dorm room. I spent my time, well, wasting my time.

But I have developed a fierce desire to live in the moment. And as much as I struggle with this, I am getting a little better at it. It’s difficult for me. I like to know what I am going to do and I like to feel prepared and be on time and do well. But often I suffer for this. I spend my time thinking and worrying about what I will do instead of enjoying what I am currently doing.

So I’m trying to be different. I’m trying to do differently.

Tonight we went to Fyr Ball. It is a huge event in Door County, one that all my coworkers and bosses (who I love by the way) have been talking about for weeks. There are fireworks and bonfires and people from all over the place all come together to celebrate the beginning of summer. So Candace and I did our hair and headed out tonight. We stopped by a coffee shop nearby and read our current books, then walked down to the lake when we heard the fireworks start to go off.

There is something magical about standing around a bonfire with a group of perfect strangers, all enjoying warmth from the same source, all breathing the same air and hoping for a good time. We were admiring an adorable puppy that rather reminded me of Piper when the fireworks started. Evidently what we had heard from the coffee shop wasn’t the beginning of the show. But now, they were being set off quite rapidly from a boat a ways away on the water. Darts of light would shoot into the air, exploding into thousands of brighter lights that flooded the sky as they dropped down lower and lower, looking smaller and smaller until they vanished along with their reflection on the lake.

Candace and I were talking about how crazy it is that their sounds are so delayed. The sound of the firework doesn’t come until a good second after it explodes “And what I’m saying right now?” she said, “That’s delayed too. Like you’re hearing it well after I say it.”

I smiled. I have always found this intriguing. Sound, as crucial and mysterious as it is, has a fault. It is delayed. But is sound what has fault, or our hearing of it?

Either way, I enjoyed those fireworks. And I enjoyed our walk back to the car. I enjoyed walking into my summer home and telling Dee about our night and I enjoyed curling up in my bed, pulling out my computer, and writing.

I guess what I’m trying to say through all this is that I have so many reasons to be happy. I am meeting new friends who are so incredibly different from me and I love that. I am getting more than enough sleep and I am eating really yummy food and I am reading lots of books and spending a lot of time, well, enjoying time.

And I’m realizing that there is something so wonderfully and incredibly magical about this world that is a good place full of good people who are sharing the same source of heat, breathing the same air, all looking for a good time.