Today was sunny and windy and a bit chilly, a beautiful, blustery day. Biking from downtown over the Hawthorne bridge at sunset, I came to the point where I can see Mt. Hood, just before crossing onto the bridge sidewalk. At that moment, the snow-covered mountain was luminous, glowing in a faint pink hue from the light of the setting sun. I gasped in delight.

As I continued a few feet forward, a view of the full moon arose to my left. The moon was ascending from the horizon, huge and dazzlingly bright, popping out beneath a background of lavender-gray, dusky sky. It looked like a picture, like something that could not possibly be real. I laughed and felt overwhelming happiness, almost to the point of tears. Continuing across the bridge, I kept eyeing that breathtaking orb and the glowing pink sunset behind, smiling.

“I must remember this moment,” I told myself. It was a moment in which I felt the thrill of being alive, of being a creature on a strange and wonderful planet. I knew that the moment would pass, and I would suffer again the pangs of despair, confusion, or apathy. But in that moment, there was no questioning my place in this world; I was alive, and I saw something beautiful.

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