I went for a hike today, and while I was out there I was overcome with emotion. It was so beautiful to be in a place where you couldn’t see other people, and the only thing you could hear was the wind blow. The skies were gold, not gray. In the water was a couple of swans, or a swan couple. I didn’t know at the time but generally speaking, swans mate for life. It was a moment that made me both grateful and resentful. Grateful I have the opportunity to go for a hike through a cranberry bog and just be with nature, no one else. Resentful that my every day life isn’t more like that.

Don’t get me wrong, I love people. I’m in the business of people and couldn’t be happier about it, but I like nature too. I think when I’m in these concrete cities I’m often overwhelmed by anxiety. When I’m in the woods, I feel none. That’s not a coincidence. We weren’t meant to live the lives we do, driving our cars to and from work 5 days a week, working a 3rd of our lives, sleeping another 3rd. That leaves you one 3rd of your time here to do what you actually enjoy. It’s not supposed to be that way. We’re meant to live in nature, have gardens, go hunting(though I find animals too cute to wanna kill one personally). We were meant to be a part of nature, not have nature be a luxury we don’t all get to experience.

It’s funny as I was driving to the trail I was listening to “sans Soleil” by alexisonfire. It’s a song about how it’s easier to love someone else than it is to be kind to yourself, and about how where the person that makes you realize that ends, a new version of you begins. It’s a moment of saying hey you’re focused on loving this person so you can forget how you feel about yourself, but when that persons gone you’re back to being alone and you need to work through that. I was feeling a bit down and thinking about the actual title of the song. It’s French for “without sun”. My life has very much felt without sun recently, in a metaphorical matter of speaking. I feel like I’ve been missing the love and the joy in life, only to be stuck with the dark days.

After my couple hours in the woods I through my playlist back on and on came “underground” by city and colour. A song about how we often run from ourselves and ramble aimless. It’s also about leaning into love before you no longer have the opportunity to do that. At some point we’ll all die, hopefully many many years from now, but if we’re not living to love each other, what’s the point? A lot of people want to be remembered when they die. They want to be remembered as a good person, or a funny person or whatever. You know what no one mentions when they talk about what they wanna be remembered for? Money or material things. No one wants to die and be remembered as rich, or the guy who drove a fancy car, or any of that. With that you need to love as much as you can in this life, and let me be clear, I don’t mean you’re in a sexual relationship so you love someone. I mean loving people, regardless of if they love you the same. There’s a boundary somewhere for everyone, but don’t love someone because of what you get in return, love people just to fucking love them.

In “underground” Dallas says:

So tell me what you need,

You bring me to my knees.

I’m tired of running,

I’m tired of moving life around.

How do we deal with this?

Treat each day as the gift it is.

I don’t want to be running,

Until I’m underground.

Stop running. Stop running from your problems, from yourself, from your insecurities. Find love, give love. If you give love I promise it’ll find its way back to you. Love finds us in some of our darkest times. Love was closest to me when I was going through a breakup and my dog was dying of cancer. That’s when I felt love the closest. I haven’t been the same person since. I still find myself running from time to time, but now I am still. In the water, I am still. Nobody wants to die running from something.

Lean into the love a little, even if it scares the shit out of you.

Where the skies are gold not gray,

J.