A friend I would have never made if I hadn't teleported into this city and I were drinking wine by candlelight, sitting across from each other, holding toes, laying down all the sweetness and density of this moment in time. It was the kind of night I used to daydream of getting to experience firsthand. A coworker earlier that day had explained to me that my friend and I are oddly very similar, although our differences stand blatant most times. She told me that she and I had a certain "purity" about us. A "child-like curiosity".
Giggling and airy as we are, I shared with her our coworker's insightful perception of the parallels between us. Charmed by this, as I was upon hearing it, my dear friend added,
"You know what I find most similar between the two of us? You and I are easily excited people. When there's good news, when someone's got plans they care about, we are happy for them. We show enthusiasm and I don't think everyone's like that."
This conversation has been sitting at the same single chaired table as me this week. What does it mean to be a person who feels the same excitement for others as for their own good fortunes? Does that imply a sense of curious purity or innocence? This was insight that I hadn't myself fully become aware of. But it's really sweet to know that people see me that way. My friend and I are those kinds of people and that adds tenderness to us but it also provides us with a special understanding of one another. When I see her expressive and curious, I feel that kinship. I, too, relate to the feeling of hopefulness and anticipation for my life and for those who surround me.
A few nights later, another close friend of mine and I were eating rice and crying about this life (pretty typical girl hang out). We were discussing how uncompromising it is to have deep friendships so that you can be mirrors to one another. You may not start off "knowing" yourself but friendship can allow you to see parts of yourself that you may be blind to. She was telling me that she admires my ability to view my troubling situation with a broader scope of why it is happening. My ability to see the big picture rather than zooming in on my emotional reactions alone. I wasn't entirely aware that I had this ability until she recognized it in me. Until she showed it to me.
The idea of those who know and love you being able to help you meet parts of yourself is so touching to me the longer I linger on it.
And then I think about all the people I will meet in this life, all the countries I will travel to, all the strangers who I will only get one chance conversation with- this even happened today on the bus- and I see how all these things will allow me to meet myself. And God, I just want to know.
I want to know what it is like to be completely embodied. Without weariness of character, absent of second guessing. Even now, I wouldn't say that this is a condition I am plagued by but you know, I'm young....it's weird. It's all learning but also creating and discovering and also DESTROYING but mostly accepting. And it's all so so so so so so juicy and vital and like the center of an artichoke.
Did you really want to stay in that place?
Content in your stance at the overextended halfway mark?
Is that where you thought peace would visit you?
Is this the place you thought you'd find a long awaited exhale?
Could that really be the final resting place you'd choose?
Is your idea of heaven so compromising?
Now you're on the boat. You're in that storm. That storm everyone warns you about. The inevitable and juicy, life-threatening, emotion-amplifying, painful painful painful painful, delicious, dreamy yuck and sea-sickening place. The ocean of the present. Nothing to do but wait. Nothing to do but sit.
Land is nowhere near. You are entirely aware of just how in the middle of it all you are. There are only two options:
1. Jump ship
2. Endure
Jumping ship is sudden death and endurance is an extensive journey that involves some of the greatest suffering your heart has felt hitherto.
So you're on the boat and you decide you'll stay. Living over dying. Even when living feels nothing like living at all. But you swore to yourself that no matter the yoking, the sweat, no matter the guilt, you'd stay afloat. So you do. And it works.
The horizon gleams and the Garden of Eden drifts closer each second. The land is promising, the air sweet. All salt has dissolved. Oils applied, fruit picked off the trees. Nectar dripping off your lips. You inhale. You exhale. Inflate. Deflate. Let go and become.
"So this is the feeling? This is what I actually wanted? Is this the fulfillment of a fantasy sought after? Is this untouched and utterly purified inner peace?"
You died in the ocean but a woman waits for you at the apple tree. You have the feeling that the two of you are not separate. You look so different. You feel so far away from one another and yet somehow she looks at you like she completely understands it all. She knows of the deep, salt-ridden sea. She knows of the sting of the air. Her own face has met such an alarming sun. There is a rich history of the water in every pore she's got.
You want to run into her embrace and yelp of the terror of the travel. Her comfort would make it all worth it. Just to have someone witness the fact that you made it out alive. You faced currants so deadly and abrasive and now you are completely purified. You have no words to say to her.
When you look into her eyes, you know that she knows everything.
All you want to do is collapse and weep.
She places her fleshy palms on each side of your face and says,
"May you never compromise your heaven again."
You drink her water. You find your way home. You leave alchemized.
Did you really want to stay in that place...?
Writing has taken a happy backseat nap in the long car ride of creation. This week and last, I've been bruises and a backache from worki...
