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And then sometimes you realize you’ve been running on a horizontal plane for too long, remind your feet they can move freely as if they were kissing the earth with each step, and remember the heart wants what the heart wants.

The man taking pictures, bent over his black camera, took one as you passed by. You were smiling and looking left as you waved to the woman you’ve known since you were 5. She was in her short salt and pepper hair and her body that’s known breast cancer, and when you ran into her earlier on the city sidewalk, she said she was “great” when you asked, she always does. Your freedom encroached upon for a moment by that man’s camera creating still moments, until you remembered your spirit is un-capturable, unable to be held within the confines of a digital square frame.

“The heart wants what the heart wants” she had said, the words echoing around your ears.

The former boss you ran into earlier from another life ago whose known breast cancer too, and two grown kids. And an annulment. And still she tells you she’s found chapter 2 with a musician named Mike who plays the piano and has been a companion counterpart for 7 new years now. You remember it as 6 yrs and one of your former careers ago, where you sat at desks and wore suits and corporate smiles, fundraising for an arm of the hospital that needed a pulse. You wrote things like “please consider a donation.”

You wondered if when you saw her today maybe you were too open. If you focused too much on what feels unsettled rather than what is now aligned since you gave up the 9-5 and started chasing your dreams. You wondered if she could relate to your new life. And then you remembered it was she who said “the heart wants what it wants” and you softened towards her willingness to use those words. You were afraid if you said it, she wouldn’t understand. Parts of you shuffled inside, dust stirring around former time spent in past years of old corners in different pieces of yourself, and how does one reconcile them all?

As you moved back down the sidewalk a job sign in a window caught your eye, resting quietly on white wood, next to two long white wedding dresses.  Your Self softened as you told it you wouldn’t abandon it for a new dress, or a new job, or a new life.

And softened again as you thought about how all of us are delicate fumbling creatures, making our way thru this horizontal plane, tiptoeing through the mouths of glass bottles at times, doing the absolute very best that we can.