Ode to Boy

My arms hurt, my legs hurt. My biceps hurt and I don’t even have biceps. It’s a good hurt, but everything still hurts. It’s the kind of hurt that reminds me that I’m alive and in so doing leaves me feeling more alive – so I like it. Lesson in this? Go out there and cause a little pain and remind yourself and someone else that we’re all still breathing.

I met a man once, while wandering the streets of Leningrad, back when Leningrad was Leningrad, and I asked him who his heroes were. He told me, “my hero is the man inside of me, the man I am to become.” In truth, this is the first time it dawned on me that the person I could/should aspire most to be like, whose values represented an ideal to strive for, whose life and gestures are a testament to all I believe in, is myself. The person who could move mountains and change the world is me. That little interaction on a sleepy dark city street transformed my thinking and expanded my horizons.

Sometimes I think of how the Soviet Union crumbled in a relatively bloodless revolution. I ponder how that fractured great beautiful country contains this being who aspired and inspired, living in a City that both lost and found its name. I wonder if he has yet to realize his becoming amidst the chaos and uncertainty.