This is a year for living.

That’s what I keep telling myself. Every time I walk away from a blank Word doc. Every time I decide to take a ride rather than write a letter. Every time I put off what I should be doing (i.e. scheduling car appointments, doctor appointments, vacuuming, etc.)

If nothing else, this election and resulting presidency (along with all its little heartbreaks and setbacks and mini strokes) has me full speed ahead. Into what? Uncertainty, mostly. But definitely art, definitely risk-taking. I’ve opened my own Etsy shop, got at least one vendor show under my belt and have been riding around in a motor scooter.s

“I’m living,” I say to myself from the inside of my spaceman-like helmet as I cross the Birmingham Bridge one day.

Behind the silvery mirror-like shield over my face, I’m grinning like a wild woman. Admittedly, I’m mostly smiling there. Or gritting my teeth (on like every turn). Or crying. I cry a lot on the scooter. Thankfully I had enough foresight to order that damn mirror-like Bubbleshield that you can’t really see through. I mean, can you just imagine looking over on your commute home to see a red-faced woman crying on her black-and-chrome scooter weaving between potholes and tar snakes on Beechwood Boulevard?

A call the scooter my mindfulness in these hectic times. I can’t do 900 things. I can’t pace or run around or make things. I am focused and alert. And because of it, sometimes the feels come rushing back, as though I’d been running from them all along.

Living or running. Living or keeping myself occupied. Living or wading out the storm, up to my ears in art and art supplies, up until the wee hours of the morning because it is finally quiet and I can chill without feeling like I’m missing something—another headline, another atrocity, another outrage.

But there’s a beauty, a sensory type of travel and place that you don’t experience in a “cage,” as riders call the call. The tears are mostly good tears, or so it seems. I can’t say I’ve had that happen too often, good tears. Those were reserved for moms at weddings, not for childless 30-somethings crossing the Oakmont Bridge at sunset.

As I sit down once more to write, I think about my scooter… about the sun that will drop soon and how I could get in a few more miles, conjure some sort of errand or excuse. And hey, in Pittsburgh, a nice day isn’t one to waste.

I hope you are all living… doing whatever it is that can keep you sane in these turbulent times. Maybe later is for overthinking and processing. For now, maybe it’s time to enjoy what is in front of you. If you spend 1-2 hours reading the news, spend 1-2 hours playing the violin, or whatever it is you people do. Don’t forget taking care of you is a way to resist in itself.

<3

mt