Memorable Scenes

For Christmas I asked for the book A Millions Miles In A Thousand Years, which I so thankfully received. I love the author, Donald Miller, but honestly had no idea what the book was about until I cracked open the first page. To say that I love this book would be true, but to say I've been challenged and energized by this book would be a better statement. Million Miles is simply a book about creating and writing a story. It seems redundant to read a story about writing a story, but somehow he makes it work, and challenges me to not just write stories in my head, but to live them out loud. In real time.

Tonight's read was about how every great story has a memorable scene. The pivotal scene in a movie does not usually happen in a Starbucks, nor does it happen in some one's living room. It happens on a mountain top. Or at the foot of the ocean. As I read this my mind quickly started drifting to a few of my memorable scenes and I was suddenly right back there, in those places, in those moments, reliving greatness:

~On the ice in 1997, in a white and gold costume, landing my second double-double combination in front of friends and family, and feeling the realization that I would pass my senior freestyle, figure skating test before I officially hung up my skates for college. 13 years of training, early mornings, 6 days a week was worth it only 45 seconds into my program.
~Running across the sand with friends as we experienced Folly Beach for the first time. Leaving that same sand only 13 days later, I walked to the car knowing I had found my second home and that I would return. Little did I know I'd spend 13 years there and counting.
~Falling head first out of an airplane after one of my best friends lost her boyfriend so that she could release his ashes from 13,000 feet. Seeing the earth below me once my shoot opened, and gliding across the sky in complete and utter silence would give me the courage and knowledge that I could do anything if given the opportunity and the will. We are greater than our fears.
~Driving away from a church, on a dirt road in Nicaragua, after saying goodbye at the first clinic I had ever served in, knowing I would never see the faces again that I had just fallen in love with. Painful and beautiful all at the same time.
~Riding a jet-ski off of the Gulf of Mexico out into literally the deep blue sea until land was just a speck. Having the guide dive down and bring up a starfish for me to hold was like someone bringing up a handful of gold.

I don't know what my future holds, but I do know that I don't plan on waiting around in coffee shops and my living room for greatness to take place. Mountain tops, oceans, and dirt roads, here I come.