Have you ever been floored by the intensity of the moment you’re in? That feeling that there’s something so special about where you are, right then. It’s one thing to enjoy where and what you are, but it’s another to feel that your in a moment that’s unique in life.
Twice.
I can remember this feeling happening to me twice in my life so far.
Throughout grade school, I went to camp each summer at Casowasco. So when the opportunity came to work there while I was in college, I didn’t hesitate. While this was no summer that changed my life, and I never met the love of my life who surely passed by me a split second too late, it was incredible. If you have any appreciation for nature, this is one of the most beautiful places I’ve found in North America. And it’s just used enough. Not overrun in an effort to squeeze every dime out of it. So it stays beautiful, even after months of campers. Working in the kitchen, I would get up before anyone else, and go down to the dining hall. Walking down a quiet, empty road in this beautiful place I was getting paid to live in for two and a half months.
That was the first time.
Friday night was kind of busy. I didn’t get to vegetate at home, as I usually would. There was a gathering after work. Afterward I went to dinner and the movies with a coworker and his boyfriend. About half past midnight, we were walking back from the theater. (note: Do not go see The Core unless you’re interested in Hillary Swank‘s “blow-job-lips”). It was a nice night, and we were walking up from an underpass, into Foggy Bottom, and the lights of Downtown started to appear over the horizon. And the last 10 years came rushing back to me in a split second. It nearly stopped me in my tracks. The sheer amazement, of how I can go from such meager beginnings in East Bumpafuck, NY, to find myself walking into Washington, DC after midnight with friends.
That was number 2.
I don’t have a point. And I don’t think this writing was especially good. These are just those unplanned moments that become marker’s in my life.