March 29, 2009


Some dreams get lost never to be found, some you throw away because the very magnitude of them shakes your soul to its core, some are written and rewritten like a manifesto and sometimes, less often than it should, something wonderful, sparking, moving happens. Some dreams you grasp with all the strength you can summon and you cry, and you pray, and you grit your teeth and walk through the fire.

I am a dreamer. I am a wanderer.

When I discovered the power of epiphany, revelation, I was somewhere in the area of 15 or 16 years old. I wrote poetry, very good poetry. I was deep. I felt old enough to grasp what was being realized and do something about it.

Lately, I seem to stumble upon revelations like a rock climber whose unlucky foot finds a loose resting place in a solid mountain side. Once the dubious piece crumbles underfoot, nothing exists as strongly in that moment as the need to find another foothold. It is a desperation so deep, its nearly spiritual, the longing to find a solid place that will sustain your weight long enough for you to move on to the next foothold and the next after that.

I had a plan for myself. A good, detailed plan. I was driven, focused, to the exclusion of everything else. Then, without preamble or warning, something happened that irrevocably changed me. I feel as if this mark, this scar, this morbid reminder is never-healing, unmerciful; the ache of it unrelenting. It was the very pain of that mark, that scar that forced me to look up and realize life was happening around me, to me… without my consent. The things that composed my day to day existence, like an orchestra building towards crescendo with layers of robust sound comforted me. I was happy to go through the motions, note by note. The symphony of friends, family and work all beautifully composed, lulled me into a sleepy existence.

They were the metronome of my life. Constant, dependable. I sweated the small stuff sometimes, and that was alright with me.

I remember when moved into my apartment in Silver Spring. After toiling so hard to gain this new freedom, to reach this personal benchmark, I was excited beyond belief. I smiled to myself for no reason at all. Every time my feet touched the plush carpet, I felt a small burst of joy in my chest. A sudden jolt like a Five n Dime firecracker, startling, sharp and pleasing to me.

My mom gave me a Swarovski crystal bowl as a housewarming gift. It came in a crisp red cardboard box with a picture of the bowl on the front, staged in an elegant setting. I examined the bowl, briefly admiring its beauty and elegance. Then, I packed that bowl away in the closet near the front door. It was supposed to go on my coffee table, offering sweet things to all who glanced in its direction. Then, I realized that the space was freer, happier and less pretentious without a coffee table. So, in the closet, the bowl stayed.

I kept telling myself, I will use this bowl for something special. An event that warrants the use of something so beautiful, so precious and so thoughtfully given by one of the people I love most in this world.

The day I moved out, I remember packing things carefully and compulsively into a box labeled “FRAGILE”. My heart danced a little as I picked up the red box with tattered corners. The cardboard was slightly bent, dipping in the middle in tandem with the hollow of the bowl and more flexible from being stored; from sitting on the top shelf with countless other transient things laying of top of it, being taken off and being put back again.

I opened the box and took out the bowl. It was still shiny, pristine. The colors filtering through it were so clear and beautiful and unashamed. I was surprised by the emotions that hit me in that instant with the sun filtering through the angles of the bowl. Pure yellow and shy orange shades caressed my face like an adoring lover. I wanted to break the bowl, knock it off the counter in one sweeping motion. Smash it into a million glittering pieces. And then… then I wanted to eat everything from ice cream to eba and stew in it that very day, make up for those days in the closet.

I studied the sunset through the bottom of that crystal bowl in the solitude and quiet of my apartment that evening. I sat on the carpet in front of the floor to ceiling windows and watched day turn to a glorious, smoky night. I wondered to myself what had happened to me while I danced to my very own symphony of sounds. I danced to work, griping about my co-workers, my bosses, I enjoyed the perks of living in 5-star hotels for a few weeks every month. I danced home to the sanctuary of a place I built all by myself, for myself. I swayed and twirled to the comfort of having my very best friends within arm’s reach and the fact that I never had to be alone, unless I really wanted to and sometimes not even then. I went to sleep at night knowing I was safe, that a sheet of solid ground caressed the soles of my feet, reassuring me. No loose footholds existed in my world and I was accustomed to that. I had put away all the crystal bowls in my life. Saving them and waiting.

It was like squeezing a lightly pebbled half-lemon into my open mouth after a lifetime of drinking lemonade. The epiphany was shocking and bitter. Only after disabusing me of old notions and the taste of lemonade did it betray notes of sweetness to me.

What I didn’t realize is that the symphony I’d built had become so layered, so loud and dominating that I’d lost this essential thin; This desire to put the most ordinary and clandestine things in crystal bowls to be looked upon, examined and maybe judged and broken by passersby. This desperate, spiritual need to decorate my life with grandness, to use what everyone else keeps for Christmas because I liked the look of the sky that day, or because I’d painted my nails red and it made me happy, or just because I wanted to. I’d sacrificed something invaluable for what was mesmerizingly easy.

Very few people know exactly what I was leaving behind, or what I was coming toward. Shedding a previous ME, like a snake sheds its whole skin. At a quick glance, it looks as if the thing could rise up menacingly and bite you, but really, it’s just a shadow of what used to be there. The actual danger has moved on, transformed, an old being with a new skin.

In truth, I left behind things that I still seek redemption for; A well of regrets that runs deeper than even the most far-reaching of my emotions.

Yesterday, nestled in the comfort of my father’s house, my wrapper hugged tight about me, I thought about those things floating in that deep well. The rains have come again as beautiful as before, or more so.

I moved closer to the window and I heard it falling in torrents. Violent and cleansing. I listened for the song I hear each time it rains a melody unlike anything else in the world, unique to this place, unique to me. Sometimes I think I may even hear God as fat drops split open on rooftops, on the grass, on whatever they hit. In the sound they make. Last night, I took off my wrapper and walked around the grounds in the violent and cleansing rain.

This morning, I woke up to the smell of freshly watered earth. Permeating, powerful and fertile. I find that doubts have been lessened, smudged like the writing of a marker that is not quite dry. In their place there is a lingering, honest certainty. I have questions now that I had previously stifled into my subconscious for the sake of easiness. Questions that now hungrily insist on answers.


I have a plan. Documented. Written with ink only I can read and understand, interpret. And as I revise and edit and decide on the setting and stage on which the play of my life will take place, I will remember if by force all the crystal bowls I packed away.

I will keep my eyes open for my chance at redemption.