25
Jan 18, 2017 · 3 min read
A year ago I wrote a list of things, beliefs, ideas I wanted to embody in my 24th year. I can’t say if I did or not (probably not, maybe sometimes), but I wanted to write another list for my 25th birthday. Only this time, with more words and only two ideas: peace, joy.
- Swimming with a friend, floating off the coast of Izmir, where the water is warm like a womb and the sky is blue like a well rested morning.
- Driving to a new home in the dark, becoming familiar with the way the road turns instead of the visual landmarks. Arriving, and still not being able to see outside, not being able to see the swing set or the zip-line waiting for us, but knowing they’re there.
- Standing alone in an airport, double checking a departing flight’s gate number, butterflies.
- In a secret place, but someone else’s secret: a hundred white lightning bugs flashing, flying, dancing, speaking for me.
- Crying in a synagogue turned concert hall because “you are the wind, the flood, and the flame.”
- A piggy back ride into a bathroom — surprise at being known in a place where I think no one knows me.
- Returning to the ocean, in the dark, daring enough, dumb enough. Feeling small, feeling swallowed by nature.
- Watching the sun rise from an airplane window seat.
- A confession of a crush in the theater bathroom, a pseudonym used because peace and joy don’t always include courage.
- Driving along the Pacific, catching glimpses of the ocean from the winding road, feeling a rush from being so close to the cliff side, sighing with relief without actually sighing.
- Waking up with nothing to do but stay in bed and read until the afternoon.
- Gripping the window ledge, looking through fluttering eyelids, through billowing curtains, standing up.
- Sewing a lightning bolt onto a purple and white canvas bag, in the middle of the living room, in the middle of a power outage, in the middle of a hurricane.
- Sitting on the sidewalk at our bus stop — not waiting for the bus, but sipping Sprite and enjoying the sun and silence.
- Recognizing a person coming down the escalator by the shape of their torso, their movement. Hugging a frame I’d forgotten was so skinny I could reach my elbows.
- Painting a purple interpretation until four in the morning.
- My sunflower dress, driving in the dark, a sunrise over the Atlantic, a morning nap on the beach.
- Wandering around a new city until I find a bright pink donut shop, feeling brave and feeling lost.
- Watching from the wings of the stage: girls in black dresses, a boy in a purple shirt, an idea from a story heard in a song manifested into a dance.
- Standing, laughing in the middle of a circle of family, close friends, neighbors, singing together — can you feel the love tonight?
- Sitting in a tree, legs dangling, watching lines of ants crawl up its branches.
- Up the ladder, laying on a bamboo bed, scrawling in a notebook, rain pummeling the roof above me, thunder calling me to the window, lightning striking up excitement in my chest.
- A warm up exercise turned into play time — running, rolling, stomping and slapping the floor in time with everyone else, laughing, exploring, moving.
- Lying in the grass, squeezing each others’ hands and screaming into the sky as fireworks shot from across the field explode above us.
- Riding a bike across my favorite bridge — that has the best view of the city, that points towards home.
