The band begins playing as the escalator carries us down to the train platform. “When the night has come, and the land is dark, and the moon is the only light we’ll see,” the cello harmonizes beautifully with the vocalist on a keyboard. Melodies echo, filling the tunnel. “No I won’t be afraid, I won’t be afraid, just as long as you stand by me…”
My step lightens, and I want to take my friend’s hand for a spin. Do you ever get an unstoppable urge to dance? The heart’s way of singing through the body. When sentences fail, there is poetry; when speech falters, there’s music. When everything fails, the body still moves to the rhythm of a beating heart. Look closely, and you’ll find trails of life at the feet of every dancer.
In the wind, an orange tree,
with lantern-like fruits dancing on its branches,
moves decisively, unlike the grass
that struggles to carry weight.
When there’s force, there’s movement.
The more you meet it with grace, the further you soar.
When the pain of divorce becomes unbearable, Nicola undertakes a physical challenge to match: a sixty-kilometer mountain trail race. Her words brim with resolve as she speaks. The mountains on which she was raised stand staunchly behind her. She points at the hut where I had spent the night, nestled cozily between towering pines. “I built it by myself after my husband left.” Its windows open to her beautiful front garden, I wonder if she had pictured the blooms that would perenially adorn the land when she labored over the house, plank by plank.
The sun is rising, lifting the mist above the river before us. The world wakes up to another day of familiarity colliding with the unknown.
“You came during a perfect week. But without the rain, how could you have this?”
The map of the entire Lake District spreads out on her wooden table. Nicola points with the back of a spoon, her silver ring glistening. “I really love maps,” she chuckles shyly after rambling about every little detail a map holds—the ridges, the colors, the legends… She makes me fall in love, too, with the possibility of capturing the world on a piece of weatherproof paper, folded into a traveler’s pocket, ready to guide her when she’s lost. (And if she truly gets lost, there’s always someone out there who will help her find her way, as Lisa and Lee did when they found me on a highway winding seemingly to no place.) As if remembering something, she disappears into the house and returns with a small magnifying glass and compass. “I want you to have this. Here’s something really cool,” she says, removing her reading glasses and holding the magnifier to her eyes so close they almost touch. “People will think I look silly, but you must try it—just look closely at these maps… They are so well made they contain everything. Every single dot is something to know.”
And every dot is there because someone has spent a lifetime delineating it.
How do you make a map? Dot by dot.
How do you write a book? Word by word (as Stephen King says).
How do you trek through great distances until you can look back in marvel? Step by step.
How do you recount memories that make up a life well lived? Every second, taking it all in.
Tough hills. Tough, tough hills.
On my final day of bike-packing, I finally learned to love them. Without the uphill, the downhill cruising will never feel so freeing. It’s a freedom that flows through my entire body—from the release of my sore legs to the wind brushing against my face. With two legs and two wheels, one pedal after another, I find the speed to shoulder the passing cars.
At a downhill turn, I catch a glimpse of a couple embracing by the lake. The woman’s dress flutters in the breeze, and I take a picture in my mind. The lake opens so brightly as if the entire universe stands in witness.
(Insert mental picture)
And all these cars with windows sealed shut, I hope someone is singing inside.
What fills the heart to the brim? Only a once-empty heart knows.
Friends, thank you for filling my days with sparks and joy. I ask myself daily how I get to be this lucky to be making memories by your side.
x, erica
