citiesofyouth

Lying on my bed, I watch the leaves of the weeping fig shake in the brief passing of the oscillating fan. This is the city.

We got the tree because we wanted to “green” up our apartment. Essentially, we just wanted a hanging plant to go in the little half-wall nook between our two areas. When I saw the tree, though, I knew it was coming home with us. I need more trees in my life.

Tonight, we went to South Lake Union Park for a picnic with our church family. There were maybe fifty or sixty people, and we talked, played Frisbee, walked along the water, munched on snacks. Sometimes, it’s hard to believe that so much grassy green could exist amidst a bustling metro of nearly 600,000 people.

I also have a hard time believing that we could walk there, a simple mile and a half, and so soon, be back in the homey yet modern Uptown with its big apartment complexes and city views. And, of course, my weeping fig.

I went for a run yesterday. The first official run of my “training.” I’m afraid to say it here in case I wimp out, but I will anyways. I am training to run a half-marathon on September 7^th.  It’s a jumbo birthday present to myself: meeting a goal that I set for this year. However, yesterday was only day one, a plain jog of three miles. But there is a first day to everything. Hopefully, fourteen weeks from now, I will be running 13.1 miles around Lake Chelan. I have until July to register, so until I officially sign up, it’s all just talk.

Anyways, I went for a run. I crossed the bridge to the usual park and took the trail nearly to Magnolia and back: a nice little 5K in about 30 minutes. Not too shabby for a first run after a long hiatus.

Dusk was creeping over the Sound, leaving trails of pink in the blue sky, but Mount Rainier stood strong and white in the East. The running path glides right beside Puget Sound for several miles. On my run back, I got to stare at the view—the mesh of mountain and metro. Seattle’s streak of steel presents a foreground that, while beautiful in its own way, cannot match the daunting awe of the mountain.

City. Creation. Contrast.

Sometimes I wonder what on earth I am doing in Seattle, how I got to be here. But I really can’t imagine myself anywhere else right now. Though I am young, I find that this is exactly where I belong.

And gosh am I young. Sometimes I forget it. A silly little number attached to our bodies is a terrible representation of who we are in life, but it’s a funny thing anyways. I try to make it a point to find out how old people are, mostly just because it always amazes me. Everyone here looks like they are eternally 22.

When will I learn what is ‘young’? I pile on endless goals that don’t get reached and obstacles to push myself harder because, well gosh, I haven’t even submitted ANY poems ANYWHERE since graduating college a year ago (really? a whole year?), and I’ve only done one painting since moving to Seattle, and I haven’t learned a new song in weeks, and I have so many books that I’m just in-the-middle-of, and I have so much to do before I die!

I’m still not entirely sure for whom I do it all, or aspire to do it all, anyway.

Regardless, I find myself trying too hard and achieving too little. I’ve at least learned to be very lax in my goals. I don’t feel overwhelmed if I don’t get that sketch done or write that poem. I have notes for it all, and it will happen eventually.

The strange conundrum of being young is wanting to achieve it all now, yet knowing I have the rest of my life, yet not knowing how long the rest of my life is. It’s a strange balancing act that relies on endless tomorrows.

For now, I will lean on the words, “Be happy, young man, while you are young, and let your heart give you joy in the days o your youth.” Ecclesiastes 11:9