We spoke about budgets next to open, beautiful second-story windows. The wind invited itself in. We welcomed it. The sun eventually hid itself under the horizon. The daylight stretches as long as it is going to, but it’s not forever. You should only speak of budgets for so long. You should only speak of anything for so long. As we departed the room, walking down the stairs through the church, a calm came over me. I can’t fully describe it, but I feel it every time I leave late night meetings there. Some of it is the excellent company of those around me. But I’ve also felt this way in this space alone, doing the light checks and the lock checks we must do before leaving, and hearing only my footsteps and quiet. The darkness and quiet envelope me as I move through the space. The building has stood for 119 years; the congregation has existed for 193 years. It’s a brief continuity in the scheme of people. I love that it includes me. It’s not just calm, I feel like I belong as I leave the quiet space. I can’t linger; it only comes in moments of transition.

I unlock the car and roll down the windows. It’s so late that the fastest route home is down Elmwood Ave. For the out of towners, that’s the main street for the cool part of town, which is a part I don’t live in. Some of the stop lights turn red. Most don’t. I have music playing. I wonder if folks outside of the car can hear it, or, worse, that I’m singing to it. Eventually I roll onto the highway.

I lean my arm out the window as I drive on the on-ramp, a spot where no one would be next to me, like I’m trying to catch the breeze in the curves of the road. The air rushes through the cabin of the car. It hits me the ways that waves do, like air on the shore of, of what? What shore am I on, in the transition between places? It feels wonderful. Cars box you away from your surroundings, but with all the windows open I feel vividly like I am part of this lit up city. I wasn’t even speeding!

Maybe I should just get another motorcycle. It was practical when I didn’t have a car (or children) in the mild climate of the Pacific Northwest. I felt so alive as I rode, immersed in the wind and smell of gasoline. It was this practice being brave, not panicking in the cross breezes on the giant Aurora Street Bridge. I haven’t been on a motorcycle since I left Seattle. Transporting it cost too much and I didn’t buy another after we came to New York. Money was too useful and my daughter was too young. I have a bike. I have a car now. I live in a walkable neighborhood with two fully functional feet. Transit from Point A to Point B is covered, and it snows here. But! I’ve been dreaming. Then a guy I know, who is also a parent, told me he doesn’t take his street legal dirt bike out on the roads in populated areas. He had too many close calls in the suburbs. His caution gave me pause; I had clocked his stomach for danger as greater than mine. It was like he’d poured cold water on my midlife crisis. In order to enjoy living, you have to be alive. I was thinking of this as I had three near misses from impatient drivers on my bicycle ride to work. Maybe I am not as conservative as I thought; maybe I should be more. Maybe I’ll get the motorcycle anyway (if money ever stops being so useful). Or maybe I’ll find ways to get the same thrill without betting on observant drivers.

How much risk am I willing to invite to fully feel alive? People edge towards death recreationally in so many ways. I don’t want that – it’s too easy to slip; sometimes that’s part of the thrill. I get it. It’s easy to notice being alive in the experiences that overwhelm the senses, drain your mind, keep you in the moment.

There’s a book called, Where Ever You Go, There You Are and its title is a perfect sentence and I resent it for it. It’s about meditation and being present in the immediate circumstances. I strongly suspect I’d find the writer insufferable. It’d probably be a mutual feeling. I’ll concede the point about being present in the world you’re actually in, about how your attention guides what you are living. I’ll dispute meditation, I spend enough time in my head as it is, but I understand it’s very helpful for other people. I cannot dispute the immediacy that you are here, right now.

The next morning, standing in the garden, feeling a bit dissatisfied unless I redefine success to include wood sorel and Virginia creeper. There’s poison ivy edging towards the porch steps. Great. I live in a city, staring at the obvious signs a deer took a nap next to the peonies and my husband is texting me about a bear sighting on the western part of South Buffalo. Nature is not someplace far away. I step back, and I’m bathed in the breeze again. Scents of the roses, cool breeze, lingering humidity foretelling forthcoming rain and all there is to do is notice it, and relish that I get to be there.

What’s the point of telling you these stories? Well, I need to remember to stop and let myself notice the surroundings. And it’s easy to do in states of overwhelm, or drama, or something novel. It’s the mundane where I need to step back, and really feel what a joy it is to be alive. It was very unlikely that any of us got to be alive! It’s hard but also lovely, and I find I need to practice noticing the lovely parts.

It is important to notice even and especially when the future feels uncertain in ways I do not like. Maybe you’re finding yourself in the same place too?