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And then time?

It expanded open enough between 12:45pm as I sat at the Public Garden Swan Pond feeling an effervescent fullness in my heart after teaching and 1:50pm as I rode the elevator down to the lobby, to allow all of the stops along the way in-between. To pack the camouflage backpack now full and ready for the still deliberating prospect of the beach, and to acquire the ham and cheese sandwich with arugula filled baguette in my hand as I stood inside the early afternoon descent.

A watchfulness replacing any sensation of worry, an allowance and acceptance of whether or not I made it to the 2:20pm train-and still I made it to the beach, a triumph and success lying in the fact of thinking it and then allowing it to happen, of catching the rising wave and jumping into its rhythm, of letting oneself be carried.

Realizing a vision without faith or action seems to negate or disprove one’s own belief.

The last time I journeyed there, the graffiti on the brick walls of the buildings just outside the train station echoed with the structural loneliness of something colorful lingering mid-construction, along with the shifting, white free-form clouds all carrying a worthiness reflected back to me like the love that seemed to be lingering around my life’s edges, the way the belief in head and heart that something good is about to become of you two has of making you full.

I sat in the cab this time at 2:07, on the ride to the station, 4 blocks and one winding zig-zag cursive scripted “L” shaped line away. Held by a red light in front of the statehouse, with its gold shining dome, I thought about how I was taking this trip, making this pilgrimage to allow my body to pay homage to the sea and sand gods, for no-one else but me and my own Sunday afternoon late summer surrender.

Wind on my skin from the partially open window to my left.

And I just knew I would make it in time to catch the 2:20 train. A renewed excitement around this impromptu gift to myself not allowing in any room for fear.

And then a sigh of relief as I felt the sticky skin of my legs below cut-off denim shorts against the thin maroon leather seat. And I thought about the words I had read recently, as my eyes tracked along the landscape now slowly picking up speed out the right-side train window, about wanting to be sure to live the width of one’s life, and not just the length of it.