Go back to the beginning. Start over.
I am thinking of the beautiful seconds in life, the kind where a passing glance is an open window, is a brief respite, a new beginning, a slow warming inside.
I think of an Indiana sunset, of being struck by the empty expanse of earth around me, the perfect altitude of clouds, the urge to pull over, stop the car on the side of the interstate, and gaze for a few moments.
This morning on the way to daycare, my daughter, in the backseat, looking out of the window at the world passing, watching like I’ve never seen her watch before, paying attention in new ways. She turns, catches me watching her, and smiles. I reach back and pat her knee, and she reaches out and pats my hand in turn.
I needed to get away from my email this morning, so I walked downtown for coffee. I see the fellow who runs the local inn, who pedals his guests in a pedicab in the mornings. They have stopped to admire the old buildings on campus.
A group of students jogs by me on their morning run, their youth and grace on full display in the morning light, legs taught, carriages extended. The young men, their faces smooth and shaven, stretch forth, their heads bobbing ever so slightly as their eyes train upon the horizon. The young women, ears hidden under head bands or muffs, keep in lockstep with them, their feet tapping across the straightaway of brick-paved sidewalk.
I see the old fellow who had a stroke a while back, the one who bundles up against the cool winter morning, and ambles slowly, each step a force of determination, an act of will, toward the same coffeehouse to which I’m heading, where there will be faces, warm, and the same baristas and the familiar tables and the trivia question about the youngest president to hold office–no, not Kennedy, though he was the youngest elected–and the buzzing of the grinders in the back and the silver music floating from somewhere.
I think of all these moments. I am thrilled when a friend calls. I am pleased to hear her voice, and even more grateful to have a minute to spend in conversation.
How long has it been since I’ve breathed richly? I feel like I’ve had a cold my entire life now, even though it’s only been six or seven weeks. But I’m getting better. How long has it been since I was out of breath?
I think of a young woman who went to college here and graduated only five years ago, whom I’ve never met, who was herself a runner, who was killed in a tragic accident over the weekend. I think of her, of the last hours she spent breathing, focusing on breathing like runners always do as she ran and ran in the race, unaware that fate was barreling toward her, that these moments would be all.
After I dropped off Julia this morning, I listened to the Charpentier mass that we’ll sing on Christmas Eve and thought of the music’s score in my head, of a particular point where the passage is marked D.C. al fine, which is to say, go back to the beginning. Go from there to the end, once more.
That’s when the last 24 hours runs through my mind. Go back to the beginning. Start over. Our son, it turns out, will likely come before the New Year. Suddenly the world is more concrete, more vivid and real. We will start over with Thomas Alan. All we’ve learned and learned with Julia, and now we get to play the music once more, knowing no two run-throughs will sound the same. If I find grace and beauty in the tiny moment of a young person running, or in the love that is a pat on the hand, I have to acknowledge the beauty that is sheer anxiety, and embrace it, to hold onto it for its due moment.
And then, like the old man on his way for coffee, keep going.
