On sitting still, or not

Remembering, discipline, and no bullshit

I usually cook all the time, but lately it’s been less. I think in part because I’ve been outside from dawn till dusk - running, biking, climbing trees, swimming in the ocean, taking long walks, and staring out at horizon lines that stoke never-ending vistas just a half mile from where I live. I’m so grateful that I’ve held onto my childlike need for play and laughter. I think as we age it’s so easy for our hearts to harden - but I want to keep mine soft. I want to make daisy chains under the big tree at Mountain Lake, watch the sand swallow my toes at the shoreline, and harvest clams and mussels from the coast until my fingers are shriveled and numb. It’s easy to play by the water - it’s easy to smile when the misty fog coats my cheeks.

I’ve always had a hard time sitting still - as long as I can remember I was on the move. I was the kid who had to run the fastest, climb the highest, and venture the furthest. “Beat the boys” I’d whisper to myself. I remember hating the city as a kid, favoring rural swaths of hilly countryside and wild forests that my parents and I would escape to on weekends. I remember being enamored by Alison’s 1/4-acre vegetable garden, and even more enamored by the bench that swung from a twisting old oak tree, speckling the ground with equal parts sun and shade. I’d run down the road, dust kicking up beneath my feet and turning my white sneakers a muddy grey. It didn’t matter though, because I was running, fast, on the hunt for the perfect tree to summit.

I remember the first time I saw fireflies in Michigan, the place where my mom grew up. I remember running around together, chasing them with open palms, my mom’s childhood so caked in memories of the little magic bugs that it took her a second to realize that at 21, I’d never seen them before. But we took off as her cousin’s wedding came to an end, kicking off our heels and running barefoot through the grass, laughing and yelling as we tried to catch them with bare hands. “They’re like fairies!” I remember telling her. My inner child was alight. We laughed and spun around, lying in the grass staring up at a sky full of glittering insects that looked like stars. It was mesmerizing and magical and perfect. A perfect moment turned perfect memory. But my mom has trouble running now, with MS slowly stealing not only her hearing, but her mobility. Her right leg is often numb and stiff. My always-agile mother, who joined the boys’ varsity sports teams in high school, just took me to REI to help her pick out walking sticks. The passage of time can be so cruel.

On Sunday evenings, my friend and I walk through the Presidio to the beach. We traverse sandy hillsides speckled with cedar trees and broken branches. We look for lizards under the brush. Sometimes we find a swing someone put up as a DIY gift to the gods, and I’ll swing as high as I can until my feet touch the clouds. We look for treasure in the stick forts and for shells in the sand. We sit on logs and watch the tides. Sometimes we see the lighthouse on clear nights, when the Headlands aren’t concealed by fog. It’s been years since I’ve been out there - I’m dying to go back.

I caught up with a friend the other day, and we talked about how it’s hard to feel lonely here because the city, parks, beaches, and lookouts feel like friends. Maybe it would be easier to sit still if I didn’t feel so attached to every rock and tree and view that have held me for so long over so many years. These places I visit to seek catharsis in hard times and good times, with old friends and new. These places that feel like time capsules - keeping memories alive of friends I’ve lost, like Seána. I don’t know how I’d remember her so well after 10 years if I didn’t have these places to return to. I can still hear her laugh, smell her perfume, and recall our conversations and troublemaking like it all happened yesterday.

Maybe I’m constantly moving because I’m searching for something, and also to hold onto something. Searching for memories, catharsis, newness, all while my body has the ability to move, limber and free. I told my friend’s the other day that I feel like I lack discipline - picking up too many hobbies, no desire to ever go back to school, coasting by at my desk job (coasting may be too generous even). Maybe it’s corny, but the one thing I feel disciplined about is enjoying life - seeing friends and family, never taking a day for granted, living good and living hard. I want to go to bed tired. I want to run the furthest, climb the highest, laugh the hardest. I want to rally my friends to jump in the ocean with me. I want to cook them clam chowder on the beach. I want to hug my parents, dance all night with my friends. I could care less about money, prestige, or impressing the rich kids I went to school with who sold their souls to bullshit before they could read. God, I fucking hate those people. I don’t give a shit about any of that. I like that I’m the most sensitive person you’ll ever meet who will also be the first to cuss out a creep at the bar. I like that with each passing year, I’m more and more like Seána - always on the move, always enjoying life, with a belly full of good food and a mouthful of laughter. I’m not sure she’d even recognize me now - when she passed away, I was still so shy and timid. Could hardly talk to strangers. But I’m so different now, and I think she’d be so proud of me. With all the heartache I carry, happiness and laughter are the two things I pursue with insatiable fervor. No days off.