I watched “The Crow” last night, at the recommendation of a friend. Oh man, so amazing. I can’t believe that I’d never seen it before. This morning, googling around, I realized that the actor Brandon Lee had been killed while filming this movie. (I have faint recollections of reading this before…)

And yet everything happens only a certain number of times, and a very small number really. How many more times will you remember a certain afternoon of your childhood, an afternoon that is so deeply a part of your being that you can’t even conceive of your life without it? Perhaps four, or five times more? Perhaps not even that. How many more times will you watch the full moon rise? Perhaps twenty. And yet it all seems limitless…

The quote above is the quote on Lee’s tombstone, from the Paul Bowles book Sheltering Sky. 

Life is a beautiful and strange place, even though it’s so hard to step back and look at it as though it’s not yours. There are only feelings and the thoughts of moving forward, the hope of a bright future just beyond reach in the distance. There are the moments of disbelief as you look at the present and realize that in some strange way, fate must be smiling on you. You cross your fingers and squeeze your eyes shut and hope that whatever you do is the right decision.

I’m reminded that life can take turns you never expected, and that sometimes, it might be best to follow them wherever they may lead. When I die, I want to have lived a full life, the kind of life that leaves beautiful memories instead of “what ifs.” I don’t want to die, not yet, but if I were to go at any point, I’d wish to leave a legacy of joy behind. Joy and hilariously awkward stories, mostly.