TTFNSF, Ta Ta For Now, San Fran!
27 Jun 2011 1 Comment
in Friends, New Adventures, San Francisco Tags: Friends, going home, life experiences, moving, new adventures, Oklahoma, san francisco
San Francisco, it’s been real. As I sit here on my flight from SFO to OKC, With my 6 50-pound bags checked below, and my 3-pound dog in her carrier at my feet, I cant help but feel a little apprehensive. I am leaving an amazing city behind, where I have made amazing friends who helped me forge some amazing memories. But I sigh in relief knowing that all I’m really leaving is the city, because my friends are very much a part of me, and the memories engrained in my soul–and I know the city will always be there, ready to welcome me back with its weird, accepting arms the second I decide I’ve been away too long. I smile at the thought of being able to spend quality time with my family and friends that I left behind in Oklahoma, I feel my stomach knot with anticipations about what the future holds, I squirm with excitement knowing that whatever it is, it will be an adventure.
One of my newest friends, Jeremiah, and I were having a conversation a few days ago about our favorite books, and books that change your perspective, books that give your life new meaning, but mostly books that I should read. He suggested that I read The Prophet, and so I did. In one day (not due to my superb reading skills, which are superb—it’s just pretty short). I started it and couldn’t put it down. Right from the beginning it spoke to me:
How shall I go in peace and without sorrow? Nay, not without a wound in the spirit shall I leave this city.
Long were the days of pain I have spent within its walls, and long were the nights of aloneness; and who can depart from his pain and his aloneness without regret?
Too many fragments of the spirit have I scattered in these streets, and too many are the children of my longing that walk naked among these hills, and I cannot withdraw from them without a burden and an ache.
It is not a garment I cast off this day, but a skin that I tear with my own hands.
Nor is it a thought I leave behind me, but a heart made sweet with hunger and with thirst.
Yet I cannot tarry longer.
The sea that calls all things unto her calls me, and I must embark.
For to stay, though the hours burn in the night, is to freeze and crystallize and be bound in a mould.
Fain would I take with me all that is here. But how shall I?
A voice cannot carry the tongue and the lips that give it wings. Alone must it seek the ether.
And alone and without his nest shall the eagle fly across the sun.
As I fly toward my future, I am making plans for world travels, for law school, and for new adventures. But I fly with a renewed awareness that every day needs to be relished in its beauty, every moment needs to be seized, and memories need to be made; appreciate the time you have, the time you’re in, and the people you’re in the now with, for tomorrow it will be a new day, and today gone forever.
They said whaaa?!