Life

Do we all get to a certain point in our lives and ask ourselves whether the structure of life has been set? As I was walking to P Market this evening (moon through tissue of cloud, streets quiet) I thought to myself, "How many days have you spent like this? And how many more will there be?" The day was fine. I saw flowers blooming on a Point Reyes hillside, thought a thought about turkey vultures and skunks, decided against calling the local police about the motorcyclist who roared around me past a stop sign, spoke with a close friend. I spent the day alone, as I do most of my days. So I could not help wondering, "Is this it?" Even the most dramatic upheaval rarely changes this sort of structure. I wonder whether I responded so strongly to the trip to Taiwan because I spent so much of it with another human. I often claim that it's best to travel alone and my trips to Bali and Hong Kong and New Zealand and New York and Chengdu and so on were memorable, romantic trips but maybe it's not such a bad thing to get practice being human.