And sometimes you get Flipper.
So I got on the ferry and it was a bright blue crystal-clear-sky day, where you feel like the world is just open wide waiting to embrace you.
And then I got to the second ferry stop on the Portsmouth side, and I noticed something moving in the water out in the river.
They were dolphins. A whole school of dolphins gliding through the water, at least nine or ten of them, quiet and effortless and beautiful. They were accompanying a giant slow oil tanker a ways off, creeping through the water, huge and hulking and unaware that playful sentries were keeping it company all the way home. Two of them swam right under the boat where I was leaning over eagerly, and I saw their huge gray bodies slide beneath, and all I could think about was how much I hadn't wanted to get up this morning, how tired the world had seemed, how much effort it had been to drag myself out of bed - and what I would have missed if I hadn't.
I stood there watching, thinking: wow.
The thing is, no matter how much shit life throws at you, no matter how bedraggled you get, no matter how you try to absent yourself from life and the people around you, to tell yourself you're too awkward, clumsy, shy, or incompetent to deserve to love and be loved in the world --no matter how much you try to withdraw from life, life won't let you. There's always something tugging at your sleeve, calling you back - always something good, something amazing, there waiting around the corner for you when you least expect it. And sometimes life hands you beauty so easily, so unashamedly, and the only thing you have to do to deserve it is to stand there and be willing to take joy.
I hope you all get a moment to take some joy today, wherever and however you are.
And then I got to the second ferry stop on the Portsmouth side, and I noticed something moving in the water out in the river.
They were dolphins. A whole school of dolphins gliding through the water, at least nine or ten of them, quiet and effortless and beautiful. They were accompanying a giant slow oil tanker a ways off, creeping through the water, huge and hulking and unaware that playful sentries were keeping it company all the way home. Two of them swam right under the boat where I was leaning over eagerly, and I saw their huge gray bodies slide beneath, and all I could think about was how much I hadn't wanted to get up this morning, how tired the world had seemed, how much effort it had been to drag myself out of bed - and what I would have missed if I hadn't.
I stood there watching, thinking: wow.
The thing is, no matter how much shit life throws at you, no matter how bedraggled you get, no matter how you try to absent yourself from life and the people around you, to tell yourself you're too awkward, clumsy, shy, or incompetent to deserve to love and be loved in the world --no matter how much you try to withdraw from life, life won't let you. There's always something tugging at your sleeve, calling you back - always something good, something amazing, there waiting around the corner for you when you least expect it. And sometimes life hands you beauty so easily, so unashamedly, and the only thing you have to do to deserve it is to stand there and be willing to take joy.
I hope you all get a moment to take some joy today, wherever and however you are.