the exotic & the mundane
being here for the whole symphony instead of a handful of staccato notes
The other day, I did something that was a little scary, and it made me feel alive. It brought my system back to when I was living in the RV and traveling the country, a time when I felt incredibly alive every moment. Not always happy, mind you, but alive. My memories from that time are vivid and visceral, and this slightly scary experience pulled up a similar feeling in my body. It felt like a “tap, tap, tap” on a windowpane. “Hello, are you there? Remember ME?”
And it left me craving for more.
It left me craving for the kind of aliveness I get when I’m standing on the edge of a cliff in New Mexico, peering into the valley of crumbly, craggy rocks in the badlands. There’s wind soaring all around me and the whisper of an idea that if a puff of wind hit me just right, I’d float right into the valley.
It left me craving for the hush of the hard, padded dirt of the dust bowl near Joshua Tree, where the sunset is painted across the sky in front me–nothing obstructing my view of the royal purples, piercing blues, and blinding golds.
It left me craving for the fear of the time I almost got stuck on half-washed out road somewhere in the desert during a blinding downpour of rain in Sedona. A getting stuck that would’ve taken days to get out of, or at least until the mud dried out. A trickle of fear, calculating how much food and water I had with me, and rush of adrenaline as we made a dash for the main road without really being able to see where we were going and without knowing if we’d make it.
I have a whole bank of stories and moments like these, moments that made me vibrate with aliveness. They’re stories of ecstasy, gut-wrenching pain, cold fear, and hot rage. These moments are what I like to call the ‘exotic’ ones in my life. They’re the moments that have pushed out the boundaries of my existence into something a little deeper and further than before. They’re my high highs and my low lows. The things that put the LIFE in living.
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