Big Thoughts From a Few Pizzas

It was the perfect mix of crisp mountain air and the comfy feeling at the ranch, the specialness of a favorite restaurant’s takeout and the excitement of a cool summer night in July. Sometimes I’m overwhelmed with the love I have for this life, I could cry doing the simplest things, like driving down a dirt road with 5 warm pizza boxes on my lap, windows down and my blonde hair whipping in my face, newly too short to stay in a proper ponytail. Often in little everyday happy moments I am reminded, a little voice somewhere from the back of my mind calls out- this all ends, this all ends, this all ends. Maybe it’s from losing my Dad. Or the friends we’ve lost. Or maybe it’s just who I am. But I’ll always say something to Hank like- I’m so happy right now, isn’t it strange how this will never happen again, this happy moment just like this? It’s just passing through. And he always laughs and says something like- just be here. Stop thinking about how it won’t last. Just be here. And I used to think it was morbid and weird to always be so aware of the fragility of everything as it’s happening, but I don’t anymore. If anything it allows me to be even more present- to feel the wind in my hair, to taste the pizza, the bright sauce and the smooth cheese, to know that time is slipping through this very moment- but to be okay with it, and to just look at it and touch it and feel it as deeply as I can. Be here. I am here. And I’m so grateful. Big thoughts from a few pizzas, sitting around a picnic table on a July evening under the setting sun.