All the Bright Places

I’m here if you want to talk
.
Silence.
I imagine Violet at home right now, on the other side of the computer, her
perfect mouth with its perfect corners turned up, smiling at the screen, in spite
of everything, no matter what. 
Violet smiling
. With one eye on my computer, I
pick up the guitar, start making up words, the tune not far behind.
I’m still here, and I’m grateful, because otherwise I would be missing this.
Sometimes it’s good to be awake.
“So not today,” I sing. “Because she smiled at me.”
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FINCH’S RULES FOR WANDERING
1. There are no rules, because life is made up of too many rules as
it is.
2. But there are three “guidelines” (which sounds less rigid than
“rules”):
a) No using our phones to get us there. We have to do
this strictly old-school, which means learning to read
actual maps.
b) We alternate choosing places to go, but we also have
to be willing to go where the road takes us. This means
the grand, the small, the bizarre, the poetic, the beautiful,
the ugly, the surprising. Just like life. But absolutely,
unconditionally, resolutely 
nothing ordinary
.
c) At each site, we leave something, almost like an
offering. It can be our own private game of geocaching
(“the recreational activity of hunting for and finding a
hidden object by means of GPS coordinates posted on a
website”), only not a game, and just for us. The rules of
geocaching say “take something, leave something.” The
way I figure it, we stand to get something out of each
place, so why not give something back? Also, it’s a way
to prove we’ve been there, and a way to leave a part of us
behind.
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