There when the door opens

Saturday 8/30/25

On Thursday I was in Charlestown standing outside of the main door of the Bunker Hill Monument waiting for it to open in order to run my circuits of stairs.

I'd been there for a while. Usually I arrive before the Monument opens at ten, in the chance that the rangers let me in early, and I can have the joint--the obelisk, that is--to myself for a couple passes because this does the soul good, and it's also helpful to work with a clear track for as long as possible.

Otherwise, if I'm to wait, I do stretches and push-ups on the grass, and make my way to the door two or three minutes before the hour, so that I'm first in line, if there's going to be one, as most people just mill about some ten or fifteen feet away, or sit on the benches.

I "only" ran five circuits of stairs on Thursday--and yesterday and Wednesday, too, for that matter, with a ten spot on Tuesday, bringing the total thus far for the week to twenty-five, and the total to 110 since July 31.

It's supposed to be ten circuits each time, but five is really the core unit for me. The foundational unit.

What I mean by that is if you're there every day and running five circuits, you're doing a nice job and getting where you need to go, Monument-wise and physically, which you're doing--if you are someone who does something singular like this--so that you can do other things which are not physical and are more important.

Like keeping going, keeping creating, continuing to try. Staying alive. Holding on. Not giving up, even though for all intents and purposes it can feel--even to yourself--that you have. Should, if you somehow technically haven't. Being aware. Becoming more aware. Growing. Growing so as to better be able to give.

I realized something as I was standing there outside of that door on Thursday. It wasn't--isn't-- the number of circuits that I run. I always have that twenty-circuit day in my back pocket and it will get pulled out again and before long I'll be in there for two and a half straight hours. That's not what I mean, though.

Most of this--and most of a lot of things in following--comes down to being there when that door is opened and a ranger sees me waiting. The door pulls back and here is this person in that space.

I'm not talking metaphorically about the door as opportunity, because at present, I have no opportunity, and many people--as in thousands--work together to make sure that I don't and will have none so long as they can help it, because of all that I am that they could never be.

But being there when the door opens is still everything in terms of everything of consequence. True, intrinsic value. Nothing can make that change. In love, in relationships, in friendship, in self-discipline, self-awareness, self-accountability, in the making of art, in writing.

I think of a former friend who was never there when the door opened, despite their promises, every last one of which cul-de-sac'ed into a lie. And how that friend is never there in any capacity with any door in their life, because being there isn't just a matter of something that happens...just because.

The door has to strike a deal with such a person. Offer them something that feels good. Which isn't necessarily the same as is good. Or solely for the good. Because that something is what is right. Further, the door has to provide them transportation to the door itself, because they won't get themselves there on their own.

This is selfishness. If what we do has to have some benefit for us, otherwise we won't do it--we won't arrive and be there--we're not a good person. This is the life recipe of the bad person. Bad people never allow that they might be bad people. Good people do, which is why they work at being good, and that's a full-time job, because it calls for constant moral vigilance. Assessment. Reassessment. Am I doing right? Can I do better?

The moment that those questions leave off, the good person ends--or the chances of being one ends--and the trip to becoming a bad person--or more of one--begins.

Yesterday I did not wish to go to Charlestown to run stairs. Many days are like that, especially as this--my life--gets harder and harder, which would not have seemed possible, given how impossibly hard it already was long ago. But I am almost as regular as clockwork over these nine years of doing this thing. I am a constant, like a force of nature. The sun comes out, the rain falls from the sky, and Colin is there when the door opens. And I am that way with many doors.

The Monument is a life teaching tool, because what the Monument teaches you--what stairs teach you--is what we can also extrapolate. Stairs are never just stairs, which is why stairs are so important to my life. Running stairs isn't centrally about running stairs. That's the irony, if you want to call it that. Running stairs is about always being there. Doing. Not making excuses. Self-awareness. Dedication. Decency. Depth. Devotion.

When I begin that walk to Charlestown when I would rather not, I am running stairs, in a way, before I have left the North End. What matters is that there is my face looking back at that ranger as the first thing they see when the door is unbolted and swung back. Day in, day out. Year in, year out. Allowing that I don't turn around and head back down the hill after those eyes meet and greetings are exchanged.

Which I don't, of course. I stay until I'm finished; and then I come back the following day.

One always has the choice to go and be there. And that's in everything I spoke about above. A choice that requires follow through, but it's ultimately a decision about a way that you are going to be. And virtually no one goes anymore. To anything. That's part of the reason why everything is horrible and people know nothing, offer nothing, are miserable, depressed, alone. They are just there. Like some traffic cone in an alley between unoccupied buildings without anyone around to open any doors.

Being there--or getting dumped there, or just happening to end up there, or wandering over there that one time--and going there are totally different things. Just as being there and having arrived there are as well.

You have to take yourself there in everything. Show up. Arrive. Whatever you wish to call it. You have to be the constant. The person in that space that is every bit as expected as the sun in the sky or the rain falling down from it when the door is opened.

Whatever, or wherever, that door may be.