Here we are, you and me

Well, listen: here we are again.

Night came and went, followed by hours of daytime, and this happened a number of times, and while I understand conceptually that time isn’t real it sure does seem to keep happening.

Fucked up, honestly.

But it’s okay. I like it, mostly. Being alive.

Do you like being alive?

I do, except for when I don’t, but even when I don’t like it I’m mostly grateful. Grateful to be here. Kind of astounded.

Here we are, alive together. You woke up this morning, and so did I. I wrote some words down, and you’re reading them. That’s a miracle, maybe a small one, but it matters to me.

Seems like the smallest miracles are the ones that end up mattering the most.

So here we are, and we’re alive. Despite it all. Despite the wars and plagues and gas prices. Despite the big and little ways Nature seems to rage against us. You could die because a tiny virus infiltrated your bloodstream or you could die because a truck hit you at a crosswalk, or a whale fell from the sky and landed on your head. But those things didn’t happen.

Or, if they did, you didn’t die from them.

The enormous risk of living, the unavoidable end of it, hasn’t reached us yet.

Why not?

Random or miraculous? You get to decide for yourself.

See it how you want to see it.

The point is we’re here, now, alive, together. All of us. We’re the ones.

We get to do this.

We get to cry salty tears, laugh too loud, pick food from our teeth, wrap up in soft blankets, pour the cup of coffee, see rain drops hanging on pine needles, pet the dog, cross and uncross our feet, watch the cars enter and leave the parking lot, hear a friend’s voice on the phone, face an overwhelming challenge, feel cross or delighted or cranky or sad or lethargic or content.

We get to move through a thousand states of being, one after the other.

We get to see patterns. We get to hear stories.

We exist in a world with music and trees, where people hug each other, where light reflects in color, where fires crackle and water murmurs.

We have time, all the hours in a day for every day we’re alive.

That’s enough time to grieve for precious things lost and to rejoice for precious things found.

We’re here, you and me. We’re alive. We’re together on this planet.

I’m glad.