043/2012 Life Experience

Word Count:  256

To live life is to experience as much as it offers. Its beauty, its wonder, its majesty, its pain.

I’ve seen meteor showers that crisscrossed the sky like celestial fireworks. I’ve seen Northern Lights with their Christmasy red and green glow. The moon hide the sun and the sun hide the moon in earth’s shadow. The wind reach down and pick giant oaks like bouquets. I’ve heard hail hit the roof like the hooves of a reindeer and the rain powerwash windows till it seemed they would crack under stress. And I’ve seen the glory of sunrise, the painted canvas of sunsets, each different in a spectacular way.

In my lifetime I’ve gone from mimeograph machines to lumbering copiers to home printers. Manual typewriters to Selectrics to keyboards to mice. I’ve seen presidents sworn in and drive by in black motorcades that slid like a snake down Main Street. I’ve seen royal weddings, men shot, the first steps on the moon on TV.

And the births, the first cries of new life, the last breaths of some loved ones, the ravages of time in the eyes of the old.

As time goes on, the less there is left to discover, and yet there are some things I’ve time yet to see.

I pack what I’ll need and dress warm, for the March wind is still touched with the winter. I feel the excitement of the new. I’ve never held a human heart in my hands, felt its warm beat in my palm. Tonight though, I will.