I had always been quick to try and close the distance to live. To find the bright sparks that flare like raw magnesium— lighting up the unexplored depths of a soul.

And now, in the second year of a journey, far away from home, I sat and pondered the inevitability of dying. I ate frozen blueberries— closer to purple than blue. Frosting the inside of a green swirled sake glass. The faded outline of a crane flying across the outside. I will die and not in abstract— but in the flesh.

I know not when or how. That is not for me to know.

It is for me to remember— not as a phrase to spur idle motivation, but to move with intent. To listen deeply. To remember the vast reach of curiosity and all we cannot know— for the frame of our lives cannot see past this act of living.