Being Alive

I've been meaning to write a blog post for Sheila, and I'm finally getting around to it. So, Sheila, this is a tribute to your amazing love of live!

I've worn glasses almost ever since I can remember. My vision has been declining steadily ever since I was about 13. Thus, I have been realising lately how much beauty I've been missing in life. But last Thursday, something amazing happened. I got new lenses, and I could see. I don't mean that I could discern blurry shapes and impressions of letters and words, I mean I could SEE. Suddenly, every one of the yellow price tags with black print jumped out at me. I heard, saw, and felt the pulsating atmosphere of where I was, but mostly, I saw it. I saw flashes of colour, and faces, and words, and lines, and textures, and depth. I saw expressions, and feelings, and life in a completely new way.

Two days afterwards, we went to the peninsula which separates Lake Erie from the Bay. As I walked along the trails and on the beach, I felt so vividly alive and wild like I've never felt before. It was as if I could feel the life - like the Force in Star Wars - moving through everything. The best part was teh beach. The sun-warmed sand as it rose and fell in little hills scratched at my skin and crammed itself underneath my toe nails. The tide pounded against the shoreline, washing sand up and pulling sand down with it. The wind breathed through my hair and invigorated me.

I'm alive, and I feel life, and life, right now, is amazing!

I also have never seen an American flag as amazing as the one I clearly saw on Saturday while we were driving to the peninsula. Never have I seen such a deep, blood-red or a pure, ethereal white, or such dazzeling white stars against the deep ocean-blue.

Never have I seen trees like the ones I saw on the drive to the beach. To me, it almost looked as if they were twisting and moving, and I half-expected one to uncurl and make a mysterious door into nowhere like in Prince Caspian. But I know one thing for certain - if a door had opened up, I would have walked through to the other side, knowing life has to be more spectacular in another world, because there's only one other living world, and that's Heaven.