I stayed out too late. I got up too earlier. I drank a lot of scalding hot black coffee and cold clear beer. I took freezing cold showers. I took very hot showers. I took the LSAT in Boulder on a monday afternoon. I took a lot of pictures. I watched it snow in late May.
I drove more than a couple of thousand miles that summer. I hiked close to a hundred miles over many hours. God taught me how to walk and at the same time be still. He taught me how to be quiet and enjoy the scenery. I ate a lot of peanut butter toast, snickers bars, and hot tamales. I went on the perfect date. I stood on top of a mountain I had climbed and surveyed the world from the top. Then I did a handstand on that mountain. I drank a lot of water. I read a few choice books. I danced the night away. I watched falling stars with people I cared about a great deal. I learned how to manually score a game of bowling. I sat at the bar and discussed life for many hours with older, wiser people than myself. I watched friends struggle with themselves. I learned how to work a credit card machine. I watched a lot of people get married. I listened to music that filled my soul and haunts me to this day (and will probably haunt me forever). I missed my home.
Every day of that summer I looked up into the sky and was arrested by the blue, blue, blueness and thought about how I was the luckiest person in the world. I wore my red shoes every day. The sun was fierce, the shade was chilly, the thunderstorms were full of hail, but there was never enough rain to stop the fires. The smoke blew in and turned the moon to blood. There were no fireworks on the fourth of july that year. I learned what it really meant to fear the flame. I learned a lot about a lot of things that summer.
I learned who I was, in a place where no one knew me before I got there.
the thin line between optimism and delusion... 