Eyes Wide a Face

My feet hurt. My shin splints screamed. My hips were ready to give out, each step a labor in pain. And yet, I could not stop dancing. I received a text “I’m gonna go for a run now.” Nevermind that the text didn’t come from this country, it was enough to inspire me to end a Thanksgiving weekend replete with much needed rain to go on a hike. For the most part, I was listening to the soundtrack for “Begin Again“, a singer/songwriter’s dream, its music footage shifting from one New York locale to the next, while in real life, I did the same along the Marin Headlands, from one trail to another. Without warning about three quarters of the way thru the three plus mile hike, the music shifted into Queen’s “Don’t Stop Me Now”, my anthem (and the anthem for so many) this past year. I was strutting. Tony Romano and his bell-bottoms would have been duly proud.

The air was a bit wet, as was the soft ground, awakening smells that were normally not dealt in the Headlands. Like the rains before it, they were welcomed. I timed my hike for the hour before sunset. After three years of hiking my “neighborhood”, I had figured out the optimal times for hiking these hills, if only to grasp the beauty of the Sausalito skies for but a moment. And so it was, though subtle this evening, I was once again greeted with pinks and purples against the periwinkle blue skies. I wore special sunglasses I secured in Vancouver that gave the world a colour that could only be enjoyed while wearing them. Everything was more crisp. Everything was brighter. Everything was lovelier.

Then again, what would you expect from sunglasses from Vancouver?
My future must be bright.
I’m wearing shades.

The next day I went on a walk with Taylor, sunglasses where they should be. Have you ever walked with your eyes closed with a smile so wide it’d break the glass house of the invisible walls we build between us and the rest of the world?

I have.

Actually that’s not true.

I didn’t walk.
I strutted.

I heard every note of every word of every lyric of every song that was playing in my head. And you know what? When I opened my eyes, Taylor was strutting to the same beat I was. Ten years young. I thought in that very moment in my mind, we would be together forever and ever. Strutting. I closed the eyes for a bit more time. This was too good. And I was still strutting

And then my eyes opened.
Again.
As wide as my face.