Choices: Lose a Tooth or Catch a Sunset

Bye, bye tooth.

The day didn't look too promising for a good sunset, so I resigned myself to a leisurely walk through Chur, Switzerland. I wanted the dark to come to see the city in its nighttime skin. It is the oldest town in Switzerland. I knew it had some secrets and would wait.

I wound up deep in the old town, wasting time looking in shop windows. I wanted something to eat, but everywhere I stopped, they were full. Note to the reader that if you ever go to Chur, many things are closed on Sunday.

I was coming around the side of the cathedral of Saint Mary Assumption when the sunset smacked me in the face. I could only get a sliver of pink, but it was enough to make me run up the hill. I can say this is a theme for me. I have almost died several times for a sunset. It is a problem.

I chased the light, trying to get higher than the buildings. There was a road in front of me that was under construction. I think it said I do not enter, but I couldn't read the language on the sign. Anyway, there was a sunset to be had so I ignored it.

I climbed over the fence and started running again. I was getting close to being high enough when, all of a sudden, I was face-first flat on the pavement.

My open bag flew, my phone cracked to the ground, and so did my knee. Not the first time, and surely not the last. I'm lucky I didn't lose a tooth.

Once I figured out what had happened, I took these photos. It was worth it.

I didn't look at my knee because I suspected it was all busted up. So was my ego, ha. No one was around to see, but still. I took a bunch of shots and hobbled back to my hotel.

But guess what? When I got to my hotel, I didn't have my key. At this point, I realized that my bag was open and all my things were probably lying back at the construction site.

I had to go back.

I walked back, busted my knee and all. Once I got there, I looked around using the flashlight on my phone. Shards of glass scraped my fingertips every time I scrolled. Why, you ask? I busted my phone again.

I should be a product tester. This is the third phone I have had in two years because of time-lapse mishaps and sunset escapes.

Now I am looking around on the ground for all my things when I remember I put my hotel key in my pocket.

So now I am just annoyed with myself.

I slowly make my way back to the hotel. I climb the stairs into my room and finally look at the damage to my knee. It's not too bad. I will feel it in the morning and probably for the rest of the trip.

The next day, I trek over to the cable car or, as they call it, a funicular. I then took the longest gondola ride of my life in the ricketyest of cars, next to another single traveler.

I get to the top and what is there to meet me is a glorious view and three cows with the loudest bells I ever heard.

Then something weird happened. Well, strange for some but normal for me. I sat on this little red bench to take in the view, and an overwhelming heat filled my chest.

I know this feeling well. It feels like a wave or wash of light through my ribs. It is a memory of some sort. Maybe from another life? I will never know. All I know is when I feel it, I cannot fight what happens next. Uncontrollably, tears stream down my face. I am healing from the inside, and I can literally feel it.

Some have asked me if I would call it gratitude. As someone who can feel their hair grow because they are so sensitive, I can assure you it is not gratitude. It is a deep inner knowing that something has happened here before.

It is a feeling of certainty that I was supposed to be here for this moment. I needed to come to this geographical location for this to occur. And I cannot tell you how certain I am that I know this. BUT I KNOW THIS.

Many people have told me they do not experience life like I do. They do not interpret it deeply through their senses. I don’t know how to do it any other way.

I sat on that red bench until the heat cleared from my chest and my eyes quit leaking some memory from another version of me. And then I wrote this:

It’s such a big world

And I just spent a lifetime breaking up against it

Hard as rocks

My hand on astrological clocks

Breaking skin

On the second hand

Trying to stop the hour

From chiming in

My body bruised

From cobblestones and new soles

My eyes sore from squinting

my face washed of feeling

and my heart full of everything.

I hope you get the chance to break against the world like this. To fragment your being to the point of reassembly. It’s been a long journey for me. Literally and figuratively. This time, though, I promised myself I would only break against what I choose could open me. Not the things that people throw.

Here is Switzerland through my eyes that day, that moment.